Alan Ferber shares a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in New York City with a roommate. At 87, escalating rent costs have become harder to afford on his own.
“It’s gone insanely crazy,” Farber said.
He splits the $2,000 monthly rent for a 500-square-foot apartment with Daniel Yafet, a 69-year-old avid biker who sleeps in the loft.
When asked if he could retire, Yafet said, “I wouldn’t be in New York if I retired.”
The roommates connected through the New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, a nonprofit that matches seniors looking to share housing costs. When the foundation started matching people in 1981, most of the participants were looking for companionship. Now, almost everyone is seeking affordability.
“I was by myself for a bit, and I thought I should get a roommate just to help,” Yafet said.
The nonprofit offers a free matching service that pairs “hosts” who have extra bedrooms with responsible, compatible “guests” across all five boroughs of New York City. One of the sharemates, either the host or the guest, must be at least 60 years old.
More than 1 million Americans over the age of 65 lived with roommates they aren’t related to in 2024 — a 16% increase from 2019, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
In the 50 largest U.S. cities, the rent for a one-bedroom apartment climbed an average of 41% between 2020 and 2025, according to a recent study from loan marketplace LendingTree. New York had the largest monthly rental increase on the list, rising $854 for a one-bedroom over the last five years.
Meanwhile, the average American worker has less than $1,000 saved for retirement, according to a new report from the National Institute on Retirement Security. The analysis also found that workers from all age groups are lagging behind recommended benchmarks for retirement savings.
When asked if he could cover all of his expenses using Social Security without a roommate, Ferber said, “Barely. What really helps naturally is working at Costco three days a week.”
Yafet believes the trade-off is worth it, saying, “I’m better off, certainly, with having a roommate.”
There are countless stories of people, especially seniors, losing everything to scammers. Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy wants to change that.
There are countless stories of people, especially senior citizens, losing everything to scammers. While some of the criminals operating overseas might never be caught, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy says state lawmakers can take action by making the punishment tougher for those who are captured in Maryland.
McCarthy said Maryland’s sentencing guidelines do not reflect the seriousness of the crimes he is seeing. He points to cases where seniors have lost their entire life savings.
“If you are a (first time) offender and you steal over $100,000, the guidelines — they’re not mandatory — are probation to six months,” McCarthy said.
He said that recommendation does not match what prosecutors are confronting, calling the schemes “organized criminal, international activity.”
McCarthy said the current guidelines make the crime worth the risk for scammers.
“Crime shouldn’t pay. And quite candidly, the way the guidelines are now, crime pays,” McCarthy said.
He said the emotional toll on victims can be crushing. He recalled a case involving a senior who was pushed to the brink after losing everything.
“We had a victim here who thought about suicide as a result of having lost everything,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy said some victims were pressured by scammers to convert their savings into gold bars before handing them over. That is why he wants lawmakers to create additional protections for consumers, including new requirements for gold bar dealers to identify and report suspicious transactions, similar to what is expected of banks.
“I think you see patterns of activity that become obvious to you that it’s a scam,” McCarthy said.
He also wants those dealers to notify authorities or warn customers when something appears wrong.
“Alert the police, or at least call to the attention of the account holder that they’re being scammed,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy believes these actions by lawmakers would help prevent more Maryland seniors from losing everything.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
Saturday afternoon at the Southdale YMCA in Edina, Minnesota, you could hear feet pounding on treadmills and weighted plates striking each other as people of all ages exercised.
Away from the machines, you could hear the sound of whispers, as senior members try to work out what they’re going to do in 2026 after finding out their insurance will no longer cover their gym membership.
This week, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota began telling customers that both the YMCA of the North and Life Time gyms would no longer be covered as of Jan. 1, 2026.
For several years, those chains have been included under the SilverSneakers program, which covers the cost of gym membership for Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicare recipients.
According to YMCA leadership, this impacts around 7,800 seniors who use the locations in the Twin Cities metro. Blue Cross Blue Shield said that YMCA locations in Greater Minnesota will not be impacted.
“I’m just so angry at the way they did this,” Diane Hurley said.
Hurley, 84, said that she was shocked to hear the news. After retirement, she said the Southdale YMCA became a lifeline for her; a place to follow a healthy routine and form social bonds with other senior members of the community who might otherwise be sitting at home.
“We don’t want to lose our health insurance. We don’t want to lose our ability to work out and to stay healthy,” Hurley said. “I don’t want to lose that. It’s far too important.”
In a statement to WCCO, a spokesperson for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota confirmed this was about the money involved.
“As a market, Minnesota is experiencing high cost pressures related to Medicare coverage. In order to ensure Blue Cross could continue offering SilverSneakers to our Medicare members in Minnesota, we needed to adjust the network structure of locations included in the program,” the statement read in part.
The insurance company notes that when the coverage at the YMCA of the North and Life Time ends on Jan. 1, its Medicare members will still have access to more than 600 SilverSneakers locations. Hurley said that most cannot provide the same services as the YMCA when it comes to classes and support systems designed for seniors.
“Did somebody just bump up their salary, find a new car they needed? This is unfair, totally unfair,” Hurley said.
Hurley and thousands of others, like Greg Socha, are now looking at the possibility of having to change insurance providers or pay the YMCA $77 per month to maintain gym membership. Socha has a dedicated routine at the Edina gym that he loves, but he’s not sure what he’ll do now with just two weeks left in the open enrollment period. In fact, he said he only just signed with Blue Cross Blue Shield in large part because of the access to the YMCA.
“Theoretically, I’m not coming here anymore,” Socha said, looking around the gym floor at the Southdale YMCA on Saturday.
The open enrollment period began in mid-October and ends on Dec. 7. Hurley is one of several people frustrated that they only received this news in late November.
“The makeup of the network itself is subject to change at any time. Specific participating locations are not guaranteed and can differ by plan,” a Blue Cross Blue Shield spokesperson said.
One woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said that she had just agreed to a plan that would see her premium go up by 16% next year only to lose YMCA access.
“There are going to be a lot of seniors, unfortunately, who are on fixed incomes and aren’t going to be able to afford the extra $1,000 a year and they may just give up, and that will be really sad,” the woman said. “It’s a very short-sighted decision on Blue Cross Blue Shield’s part. The way to keep health costs down is to keep us healthy and the way to keep us healthy is to encourage and motivate people to exercise.”
Glen Gunderson, CEO for YMCA of the North, told WCCO that his team only found out about the change this week as well. He said that he considers Blue Cross Blue Shield to be a strong partner, but he’s encouraging concerned seniors to consider other insurers that may work with the SilverSneakers program.
The YMCA is pointing to companies like Allina Health, Aetna, HealthPartners, Humana, Medica and UnitedHealthcare.
“We have huge respect for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, their leaders are amazing, they are up against, I’m sure, very challenging economic times like we all are,” Gunderson said. “We’ve just been surprised. We came to find this out as I said on Wednesday late in the game and it’s unfortunate. We’re disappointed that seniors are being caught up in it.”
(CNN) — Senior citizens are the latest group of Americans to face steep increases in their health insurance premiums for 2026.
Medicare Part B premiums will jump nearly 10% next year, the largest increase in four years and second-largest hike, in dollar terms, in the program’s history. The standard monthly premium will be $202.90, an increase of $17.90 from this year, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That will eat up nearly one-third of the $56 monthly Social Security cost-of-living adjustment that retirees will receive in 2026.
The steep increase in premiums for Medicare Part B — which covers doctors’ visits, outpatient hospital services, medical equipment and drugs administered by physicians, among other services — comes at a time when health insurance premiums are rising sharply for those with job-based coverage and Affordable Care Act policies. This upward trend puts more pressure on Americans already struggling with affordability as the prices of food, utilities and other necessities remain stubbornly high.
“In a world in which people are concerned about the affordability of health care and all other needs, it’s pretty distressing that this increase is so large,” said Jeanne Lambrew, director of health care reform at The Century Foundation.
Increasing medical and pharmaceutical costs, as well as usage, are common drivers of the rise in health care premiums across coverage types.
Medicare is also contending with the continuing wave of baby boomers becoming eligible to enroll, plus the ongoing shift toward surgeries and other medical services being performed at outpatient facilities, rather than in hospitals, where care is covered by Medicare Part A, said Rachel Schmidt, research professor at Georgetown University’s Medicare Policy Initiative.
CMS noted that monthly premiums would have risen by another $11 had it not approved a change in payment for skin substitutes that the agency says will reduce spending by nearly 90% on the wound care products. Medicare shelled out more than $10 billion for these products last year, up from $256 million in 2019.
Meanwhile, Medicare Part D prescription drug policies, which are offered by insurers, will see fewer changes for 2026 than they did for this year. The Biden administration had to rush last fall to stand up a multibillion-dollar subsidy program for insurers to prevent steep premium increases stemming from the Inflation Reduction Act. The law, which the Democrat-led Congress approved in 2022, required insurers to be on the hook for more of the drug costs once enrollees hit the catastrophic coverage phase above a $2,000 cap.
The number of plans being offered for 2026 will decrease modestly, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman, which noted that Elevance is exiting the market. Many insurers are hiking their premiums by as much as $50 for next year, though some are lowering them or holding them steady.
“If seniors in the standalone PDP market are willing to shop, there is still stability,” said Brooks Conway, a principal at Oliver Wyman.
Roughly 69 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare, which also covers people with disabilities. The annual open enrollment period ends December 7.
Medicare Advantage market retrenches
Medicare Advantage, which covers just over half of Medicare beneficiaries, is going through a second year of major changes. The overhaul is being spurred by medical costs outpacing reimbursements from the federal government, which pays insurers to offer coverage to Medicare enrollees.
Many enrollees will have to search for new coverage for 2026 since the number of offerings is tumbling 10% to 3,373 plans, according to Oliver Wyman. Major insurers, including CVS Aetna, Elevance, Humana and UnitedHealthcare, are reducing their plan options in at least 100 counties. The changes are expected to affect just over 2 million people.
(These figures do not include special needs plans that cater to enrollees with chronic conditions or those who are dually eligible for Medicaid. These plans will have more offerings for 2026 than they did this year.)
In certain counties, there will be fewer policies offered with $0 premiums and fewer PPO plans, which have wider provider networks, said Greg Berger, a partner at Oliver Wyman. Insurers are primarily seeking to exit or scale back their less profitable products and geographic areas.
“A lot of MAPD plans are trying not to grow,” Berger said, referring to Medicare Advantage plans with prescription drug coverage.
And for the first time, some Americans will have no Medicare Advantage plans to choose from. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont and UnitedHealthcare decided to discontinue their coverage in the Green Mountain State, leaving traditional Medicare as the only option for residents in eight counties.
Yet even with the pullbacks, most Medicare beneficiaries will have an array of options in 2026 — 39 plans, on average, down from 42 plans this year.
“Millions of Medicare beneficiaries will continue to have access to a broad range of affordable coverage options in 2026,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, CMS’ administrator, said in a statement.
Also, fewer plans will offer $0 deductibles for prescription drugs, while maximum out-of-pocket limits for medical care are rising $490, or about 10%, on average. Among Medicare Advantage plans with drug coverage that have a monthly premium, the average premium will increase to $66 next year, up from $60 this year.
What’s more, the supplemental benefits that Medicare Advantage offers enrollees, such as funds for over-the-counter medicines, dental care and vision services, are getting skimpier. The dental allowance, for instance, is declining 10% to $2,107, on average, Berger said.
The current disruptions in the market, however, don’t mean that Medicare Advantage will continue to shrink. Over the longer term, the program is still an attractive market for insurers, Schmidt said.
As Minnesota’s populations ages, senior living communities are seeing long waitlists. Experts say the time to plan is now, not later.
At 76, Virginia Olson lives an active life. She has been in independent living for nearly a decade.
“It was ten years ago when my husband passed away and I feel healthier and more alert now than I did then,” she said.
Now there is an urgent need for aging adults to plan for the future as the senior living market can’t keep up with demand as boomers age.
WCCO
By 2030, one in four Minnesotans will be 65 or older.
Ashlee Mueller is the director of Friendship Village of Bloomington.
“When folks come in and they say, Oh, I’m two to five years out from making an actual move. Based on availability and the waitlist we’re seeing right now all over the state, it’s more like five to ten,” said Mueller.
Waiting too long can come at a cost.
“Ultimately by not having a proactive plan, like a community that has a life plan contract, you’re choosing crisis for your family and for yourself,” she said.
Tim Gallagher moved into independent living early and hasn’t looked back.
“Nothing has changed at all in my routine or what I do,” he said. “Now I don’t have to worry about health care in the future because I’m set here.”
But to get there, Mueller says difficult conversations about downsizing, finances, and healthcare are required.
She recommends asking if facilities have on-site skilled nursing.
“Because a community that has on-site skilled nursing is going to be able to support you and or your spouse together longer,” she said. “It’s figuring out what that path looks like before you don’t have any options at all.”
Lifecare communities offer independent living with guaranteed access to higher levels of care like assisted living, memory care, or skilled nursing, should the need arise.
Texas teen named Time’s “Kid of the Year” for taking on scams targeting seniors – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Cybercriminals stole more than $16 billion last year from unsuspecting victims. Nearly a third of those victims were seniors. Now, one Texas teenager is using computer science to fight scammers. Karen Hua reports.
When Don Searles went to a recent party, he didn’t want to show up empty-handed. So he made peanut brittle using an old family recipe — with a modern-day twist.
“We added the marijuana,” he said.
The party was hosted by 74-year-old Gayle Crawley at the Trilogy retirement community an hour east of San Francisco, where lately the golf course has a new competitor for popularity.
Between 2021 and 2023, cannabis use among Americans 65 and older went up 46%, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Crawley said those numbers reflect that marijuana is a “good solution to a lot of medicinal issues.”
And with cannabis now legal in 40 states for medical use and 24 for recreational, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the stigma is quickly diminishing.
Steven Clarke, another attendee at Crawley’s party, said he’s never smoked and prefers edibles.
When asked why he’s drawn to the drug, Clarke told CBS News that “it does work on PTSD, pain issues, relaxation issues, brain disorders, heart disease.”
But some medical professionals disagree.
Matt Springer, a professor at UC San Francisco, warns that THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana, may carry health risks, no matter how seniors ingest it.
“If they are smoking marijuana, we can be pretty confident that they’re harming their cardiovascular system,” Springer told CBS News, adding that if they’re eating THC, “they’re not without risk.”
Other researchers found cannabis use is linked to a doubled risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a 29% higher risk for acute coronary syndrome and 20% higher risk for stroke, according to a study published in June. The authors analyzed data from 24 studies published from 2016 to 2023.
Searles, who suffers from chronic pain after a motorcycle accident five years ago, said he isn’t surprised by the findings.
“I go to my doctor and he says, geez, quit drinking milk. Uh, stay away from the sugar. What isn’t bad for you nowadays?” Searles said.
Jim Axelrod is the chief correspondent and executive editor for CBS News’ “Eye on America” franchise, part of the “CBS Evening News.” He also reports for “CBS Mornings,” “CBS News Sunday Morning,” and CBS News 24/7.
For years now, health experts have been warning that COVID-era politics and the spread of anti-vaxxer lies have brought us to the brink of public-health catastrophe—that a Great Collapse of Vaccination Rates is nigh. This hasn’t come to pass. In spite of deep concerns about a generation of young parents who might soon give up on immunizations altogether—not simply for COVID, but perhaps for all disease—many of the stats we have are looking good. Standard vaccination coverage among babies and toddlers, including the pandemic babies born in 2020, is “high and stable,” the CDC reports. And kindergarteners’ immunization rates, which dipped after the pandemic started, are no longer losing ground.
Whatever gaps in early childhood vaccination were brought on by the chaos of early 2020 have since been reversed, Alison Buttenheim, a professor of nursing and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, told me: “We’ve substantially caught up, which is incredible. It’s actually an amazing feat.”
But even in the shadow of this triumph, a more specific crisis in vaccine acceptance has emerged. Americans aren’t now suspicious of inoculations on the whole—the nation isn’t anti-vax—but we have lost faith in yearly COVID shots. Barely any children have been getting them. Among adults, the drop in uptake has been rapid and relentless: By the spring of 2022, 56 percent of all adults had received their initial booster shot; a year later, just 28 percent were up to date; so far this COVID season, just 19 percent can say the same.
Of course, the dangers from infection have been dropping too. Almost all of us have been exposed to COVID at this point, either through prior immunization, natural infection, or—most likely—both. That makes the disease much less deadly than it’s ever been before. (Among kids, the CDC now attributes “0.00%” of weekly deaths to COVID.) But for one age group in particular—people over 65—the crashing vaccination rates should inspire dread. More than 1,500 deaths each week are still associated with COVID, and almost all of them are senior citizens; current data hint that COVID has been killing seniors at seven times the rate of flu. Across the nation’s nursing homes and retirement communities, the Great Collapse is real.
Like younger American adults, seniors haven’t been avoiding all recommended immunizations, just the ones for COVID. Their flu-shot rates have gone down a little in the past few years, but only by a handful of percentage points from a pandemic-driven, all-time high of 75 percent. This season, about 70 percent of people over 65 have received their flu vaccine, in line with average rates that haven’t changed that much for decades. In the meantime, seniors’ uptake of the latest COVID shots has fallen off by more than half since 2022, to just 38 percent. These diverging rates—steady for the flu, plummeting for COVID—are notably at odds with the attendant risks. Seniors seem to understand the value of inoculating themselves against the flu. So why do they forgo the same precaution against something so much worse?
One might blame the toxic political battles around vaccines, and rampant misinformation about their ill effects. “Something terrible has happened to broaden and intensify public rejection of vaccines and other biomedical innovations in the United States,” the vaccine expert Peter Hotez wrote in his recent book The Deadly Rise of Anti-science. Certainly, toxic politics and rampant misinformation exist, but the turn against the experts that Hotez and others have decried doesn’t really fit the emergency described above. Taken as a whole, the population of Americans over 65 is hardly soured on vaccines. Nor are they afraid of COVID vaccination in particular: Though political divides persist, more than 95 percent of seniors received their initial round of shots. More than 95 percent!
Echoing Hotez in an opinion piece for JAMA that came out last week, the FDA commissioner, Robert Califf, and a senior FDA official named Peter Marks cited the abysmal uptake of COVID shots by senior citizens as one of several signs that the country is nearing “a dangerous tipping point” on vaccination, driven by an oceanic online tide of vaccine misinformation. (Health-care providers should try to stem that tide, they wrote, with “large amounts of truthful, accessible scientific evidence.”) But the volume and intensity of anti-vaccine rhetoric seems to have diminished somewhat since 2022, Buttenheim told me: “You’d have to come up with some reason why it’s having more of an effect now than it did over the past couple of years.”
Confusion and fatigue may well be bigger factors here than fear or false beliefs. Many Americans, young and old, have long since moved beyond the pandemic in their daily life, and may not want to think about the topic long enough to schedule another shot. The fact that people are fed up with COVID and all of the arguments it spawned is a “major drag on uptake of the vaccine,” Noel Brewer, a professor who studies health behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told me. Along with many other adults, seniors have also been thrown off by changes in what the shot is called and when it’s recommended for which groups. Buttenheim doesn’t think that people are particularly afraid of this year’s dose. “This is not, like, Back off,” she said. “It’s like, Oh, there is one?”
Another theory holds that the CDC is responsible for this indifference, by pushing yearly COVID shots on people of all ages, including those for whom the net benefits of further vaccination are hard to see. In the U.K., where a much narrower group of people is eligible for updated COVID shots, uptake among seniors has been almost double what it is in the U.S., at 70 percent. That’s not because the British health-care system is better organized than ours—or not only on account of that. Even in that context, British seniors only get their flu shots at a rate that’s slightly higher than American seniors do.
The broader rollout could contribute to the problem, Rupali Limaye, an epidemiologist who studies health communication at Johns Hopkins University, told me: “When it’s a blanket recommendation, it does dilute the message.” The CDC’s messaging on COVID shots has the benefit of being simple, but at the cost of being less persuasive for the people who are at highest risk. Then again, all Americans above the age of six months are advised to get the flu shot, and more or less the same proportions do so every year. That’s a product of our training, Brewer told me: “The U.S. has invested for decades in developing the habit of getting an annual flu shot. Older adults know that this is the thing they need to do, and they are used to it.”
Even more important than the habit of getting flu shots is the habit of supplying them. Local clinics, businesses, and retirement communities know how to give these vaccinations (and they understand how the costs will be covered); they’ve been doing this for years. Buttenheim told me that her university sets up a flu-shot clinic every fall, where she can usually get immunized in less than 90 seconds. But the equivalent for COVID shots is yet to become routine. Where the vaccines are available, appointments have been canceled over missing doses or mix-ups with insurance. Government efforts to improve access were delayed.
With the end of the pandemic emergency, obtaining a COVID shot has simply gotten harder, no matter your intentions or beliefs. “The very well-structured and scaffolded process for getting those vaccines before has just evaporated,” Buttenheim said. For the uptake rates to turn around, a new, post-emergency system for delivery might have to be established, with less confusion over cost and coverage. Even that development alone would do a lot to end the geriatric vaccine crash. If COVID shots could be made as standardized and reflexive as the ones for flu, seasonal vaccination rates might start rising once again, at least until about two-thirds of people over 65 are getting shots. That’s the rate we see for flu shots, and probably an upper limit, Brewer said: “We won’t do better than that.”
Peter Kraus started working the day after he turned 18, when he was hired by an uncle who was a rare book dealer. Sixty years later, he’s still selling books — and loving it.
“I’m one of those lucky people — I adore what I do and I’ve never contemplated giving it up,” said the 78-year-old Kraus, owner of Ursus Books in Manhattan. Kraus said he started Ursus Books — which sells rare books such as a 1926 publication by surrealist Man Ray called “Revolving Doors” (price tag: $85,000) — in a fifth-floor walk-up on West 23rd Street in the 1970s.
Asked if he considers retiring, Kraus laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. I’ll retire in a wooden box.”
Kraus said his younger daughter, a former human rights attorney, has joined him in the book business. His older daughter, Nicola Kraus, is a novelist who co-wrote “The Nanny Diaries.”
Kraus is among one of the fastest-growing groups of U.S. workers: people 75 and older. Granted, this group of workers is a fraction of the overall workforce, and three-quarters of people over 65are retired. But more Americans are pursuing careers long past the typical retirement age, a shift that comes as the oldest baby boomers hit their late 70s and as better health among adults allows them to extend their working lives.
Peter Kraus started in the rare book business the day after he turned 18 when he went to work for his uncle — and 60 years later, he still adores his job. He said one revelation about work as he’s gotten older is that he doesn’t take it as seriously as he used to. “Work just adds to my life,” he said.
P. Kraus
Older Americans “are, thanks to medical science, living longer than their parents and grandparents, and they’re different in attitude,” said Bob Morison, a senior advisor at consultancy Age Wave and the co-author of “What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age.” “They’re aware that they have more years and that there’s a lot of time to fill.”
In 2002, about 1 in 20 people over age 75 were working in the U.S., although by 2022, that share had jumped up to 1 in 12, according to data from the Labor Department. By 2032, about 1 in 10 people over 75 will still be working, even as the agency predicts the share of younger workers to be flat or slightly down over the same period. This jump can be partly due to the shift in views about retirement, with some Americans wanting to work past 65 due to professional goals. Others need to continue to work due to insufficient retirement savings.
Work that they love
Many Americans who work in their late 70s and beyond are often motivated to stay in the workforce for a handful of reasons, Morison said. “One is that they love their work — it can be work they’ve always done, or it may be a second career that they started after retiring from what they’ve always done,” he noted.
Some people enjoy their colleagues and want the social interaction that comes from their job, while others may want to contribute to their community or industry, such as the case of some public officials and business leaders, he noted. Workers over 75 have garnered more attention of late given the ages of some of America’s top elected leaders, including President Joe Biden, who is 80, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, 81.
As U.S. elected officials are getting older, so are concerns among more voters about their abilities to handle the job. Slightly more than half of people polled by CBS News said they believe that the jobs of president and senator are too demanding for people over 75, while 8 in 10 Americans say they have concerns about the abilities of elected officials over 75.
But generally, people are now hitting the traditional retirement age of 65 are in better health than prior generations, thanks to advances in maternal care, public health and other medical leaps that have changed the health trajectories of Americans born in the 1930s and later, said to Dan Belsky, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health who studies aging.
Even so, he noted that people who work into their 80s tend to be the exception rather than the norm. About 26% of people between 65 to 74 are continuing to work, and that number shrinks to about 7.3% for people over 75, according to census data.
“We can recognize that these folks are indeed not representative of the underlying cohorts that they’re born into,” he said. “Nevertheless, it’s worth observing that there are, in fact, a lot of hale, vigorous, active 70-somethings and 80-somethings and even 90-somethings out there.”
“We’re balling now”
There are a few commonalities between people over 75 who are continuing to work, according to experts and workers themselves. For starters: Health is a major determinant of whether you’ll still be working in your 70s and beyond.
“The first unifying characteristic is good health — and it’s your good health and then also the relative good health of your spouse and people for whom you have immediate responsibility, unless you have the resources to have other people caring for them,” said Ruth Finkelstein, the executive director of Hunter College’s Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging.
Secondly, people with college degrees are more likely to work into their 70s and beyond, Finkelstein said. About 20% of people with bachelor’s degrees were working at age 70 in 2017, compared with 10% of people with a high school education or less, she said, citing an analysis of census data.
Because of that, older workers tend to be professionals, in industries such as education or management, while many are also working in artistic fields, she said. And, she said, up to one-quarter of people over 70 who are working are self-employed.
Among those who fit that bill: Shelly Clark, 76, a singer, dancer and actress whose R&B group Honey Cone first scored hits in the 1960s and made appearances on “Soul Train,” “American Bandstand” and other shows. Clark said she’s now prepping another tour and enjoying her career more than when she was younger.
Clark (center), 76, said she’s enjoying her career more now than when she was younger, noting that she has more control over her career now and loves hearing from fans about the impact her music has had on their lives.
Shelly Clark
“We’re balling now and having more fun, and we are in our 70s,” Clark said, speaking from Las Vegas, where her husband, Earth, Wind & Fire co-founder Verdine White, also in his 70s, was performing with his group.
“When we were in our 20s and 30s, more was expected of us — we had to be under the rules of the record company and management,” she said.
“Now I’m more calling the shots.”
The new American dream: Working forever?
Asked if she thinks about retiring, Clark said it’s a “dirty word” in her house. “Right now we are having so much fun, that even though it may be something I address eventually and my husband too, we never talk about that,” she added.
But of course, there’s a darker side to people who work into their 70s and beyond, said Hunter College’s Finkelstein.
“There’s the sort of other end of the spectrum from people who work in knowledge industries and have jobs that they love,” she said. “They are people who have no means of support in retirement and have to keep working whether they really can or not.”
Many of those workers are employed in gig jobs like Uber drivers or are working as cleaners, babysitters or caregivers, Finkelstein said. And some people simply don’t have enough benefits through Social Security or haven’t saved much on their own, an issue that particularly affects women, who are more likely to have taken time out of the workforce to provide unpaid care for children and older relatives.
Increasingly, many younger workers fear they’ll slip into that group, research indicates. About 1 in 5 Americans believe they’ll never retire, and point to financial worries for that belief, according to a recent Axios/Ipsos poll. And there’s good reason for those fears, with the majority of low-income workers nearing 65 without any retirement savings.
“The idea that we’ve all been saving for our retirement is only true for people who earn enough money to save for retirement,” Finkelstein said.
Advice from those in their 70s and 80s
Control over one’s career and time was a theme among the older workers interviewed by CBS MoneyWatch. But, they said, getting older while working also means taking time for things they might not have paid attention to when they were younger, like pacing themselves and investing in physical health.
Look for work that engages you, or seek out new opportunities that use your skills, said Peter Tanous, 85, a writer of books such as “Investment Gurus” and the founder and chairman of Lynx Investment Advisory, who lives in Washington, D.C. Tanous said he works about 20 hours a week, including writing, meeting with clients and working with various boards he serves on.
Tanous said he’s working on a sequel to a novel, as well as continuing to advise clients and work on several boards. Making time to keep fit is important for people who work into their 70s and 80s, he added. “You should at least 3 to 5 scheduled exercise sessions a week, and probably more,” he noted.
Peter Tanous
But, he said, don’t neglect your health when you are in your 50s and 60s. Tanous also said he works with a personal trainer several times during the week to maintain his fitness. “I can do a one-minute plank, which I’m proud of,” he said.
Clark, the singer, said she has become more careful about her health and pacing herself. “Now you may have to warm up more, or may have to do stretches more,” she said. “We have to be smarter in everything we do — in traveling, recording, whatever falls into the banner of being an artist in your 70s.”
She said, “I believe we have the advantage, but we also have to slow it down.”
As for bookseller Kraus, he said he’s a “maniac” traveler, including his annual trip to Japan to scout for rare books. Meeting clients or friends for lunch is key to maintaining his positive outlook, he added, as well as putting together new catalogs and hunting down acquisitions at other bookshops or auction houses.
“You have to find something that you really enjoy, and if it’s what you do as work, then why would you stop it?” said Kraus. “I mean, I’m lucky nobody can fire me — there’s nobody to say you have to stop.”
Baby Boomers are living it up, splurging on cruises and restaurants. Younger Americans are struggling just to keep up.
Bank of America internal data shows a “significant gap” in spending has opened recently between older and younger generations.
While Baby Boomers and even Traditionalists (born 1928-1945) are ramping up spending, Gen X, Gen Z and Millennials are cutting back as they grapple with high housing costs and looming student debt payments.
“It’s fairly unusual,” David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, told CNN in a phone interview.
Overall, household spending dipped 0.2% year-over-year in May, according to the bank’s card data — but the generational breakdown showed a more varied picture.
Spending increased by 5.3% for Traditionalists and 2.2% for Baby Boomers. In contrast, spending fell by about 1.5% for younger generations.
If not for the aggressive spending by Boomers, Tinsley said, overall consumer spending would have been even more negative.
So, what is going on?
Older Americans are ramping up spending as they benefit from a spike in Social Security payments.
Starting in January, Social Security recipients received an 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment, the biggest increase since 1981. That increase — caused directly by high inflation — is boosting the average retirees’ monthly payments by an estimated $146.
Bank of America spending data shows a noticeable bump in spending by households that received the cost-of-living boost.
However, the bank noticed the spending surge by older Americans is happening among high-income households too. And those consumers are less likely to be impacted by the spike in Social Security payments.
“That can’t be the whole story,” Tinsley said of the cost-of-living adjustments.
To explain the drop in spending by younger Americans, Bank of America pointed to high housing costs. In recent years, rental rates spiked, home prices soared and mortgage rates surged.
Younger Americans are also much more likely to move than older ones.
“The people who do move are really facing quite significant cost increases,” said Tinsley.
Bank of America has noted that older consumers are spending on travel, including hotels, airfare and cruises, now that the Covid emergency is over.
Due to Covid fears, older generations held back on travel during the pandemic, but now they are “splurging,” Tinsley said.
Beyond the high cost of living, Bank of America said many younger Americans are also likely bracing for the return of a significant monthly expense: student debt.
The bipartisan debt ceiling deal included a provision that specifically prevented the Biden administration from extending the pause on federal student loan payments.
The student debt freeze, in effect since March 2020 when the Covid pandemic erupted, is expected to conclude by the end of August.
That is particularly painful to younger consumers. Americans are sitting on $1.6 trillion of student debt, according to the New York Federal Reserve, and the vast majority of that student debt is held by those under the age of 49.
For millions of Gen Z and Millennials, the return of student debt payments will mean less money for spending on restaurants and vacations.
Some consumers may be starting to pull back on spending ahead of that change, Tinsley said: “It’s coming down the tracks pretty fast now.”
A driver plowed into a group outside ashelter that had been housing migrants in a Texas border town on Sunday, leaving seven people dead – including several immigrants – and others injured, authorities say.
Authorities in Brownsville, Texas say they got a call around 8:30 am CT about a Land Rover that hit multiple people who were waiting at a bus stop across the street from the Bishop Enrique San Pedro Ozanam Center, a non-profit homelessshelter that has been helping house migrants.
The crash left seven dead and others injured, Martin Sandoval, a Brownsville police spokesperson, told CNN. Sandoval added that several migrants were among the dead and Border Patrol was working to confirm the identities of the victims. It’s unclear whether the crash was intentional.
CNN interviewed migrants staying at the center in December. At the time, the center’s director told CNN that migrants from all over the world were beginning to stay at the shelter and they were seeing an uptick in stays. The shelter is equipped to house and feed 200 people, according to its website.
Witnesses at the scene detained the driver until officers arrived, Sandoval said during a Sunday news conference. He said the driver of the vehicle received medical care and has been arrested on a reckless driving charge. “More than likely” there will be other charges added, Sandoval said.
Police have not released the name of the driver, but say it was a Hispanic man, Sandovaltold CNN. Brownsville police are investigating with the help of Border Patrol, he added.
Sandoval said authorities are still investigating whether the crash was intentional or accidental. He said witnesses described seeing the driver ignore a red light, drive up on a curb and run over a group of people waiting at the bus stop. Police are checking the driver’s toxicology, Sandoval added.
The shelter has been housing immigrants while they wait for more permanent housing, he said.
Brownsville, Texas is located on the southern tip of Texas, just across the Rio Grande River. The town’s population is nearly 95% Hispanic or Latino, according to the 2022 census.
The crash happened just days before a Trump-era immigration restriction dubbed Title 42 is set to expire. The pandemic-era policy allowed immigration agents to swiftly return migrants to their home countries. Officials have predicted a rise in immigration in coming weeks when the restrictions are lifted Thursday.
Victor Maldonado, the director of the Ozanam Center, told CNN that about 20 to 25 migrants were sitting on the curb waiting for a bus across the street from the shelter. He said surveillance video captured the deadly wreck with footage showing a vehicle driving very quickly, crashing about 30 feet from where the migrants were sitting and then losing control.
Police took Maldonado’s copy of the surveillance video, he said.
The migrants were from Venezuela and had arrived at the shelter about two or three days ago, Maldonado said.
Maldonado said after the crash, he and a staff member at the shelter ran outside to find a very graphic scene, with body parts spread across the area.
“I’ve got a staff [member] who is in shock,” Maldonado said, adding that he, too, was in shock.
Across Japan, nearly 1.5 million people have withdrawn from society, leading reclusive lives largely confined within the walls of their home, according to a new government survey.
These are Japan’s hikikomori, or shut-ins, defined by the government as people who have been isolated for at least six months. Some only go out to buy groceries or for occasional activities, while others don’t even leave their bedrooms.
The phrase was coined as early as the 1980s, and authorities have expressed increasing concern about the issue for the past decade – but Covid-19 has made things worse, according to a survey conducted last November by the government’s Children and Families Agency.
The nationwide survey found that among 12,249 respondents, roughly 2% of people aged 15 to 64 identified as hikikomori, with a slight increase among those aged 15 to 39. With that percentage applied to Japan’s total population, there are an estimated 1.46 million social recluses in the country, according to a spokesperson from the agency.
Common reasons cited for social isolation were pregnancy, job loss, illness, retirement and having poor interpersonal relationships –but a top reason was Covid-19, with more than a fifth of respondents citing the pandemic as a significant factor in their reclusive lifestyle.
No further details were given about the impact of Covid-19 on respondents.
Japan, like many countries in East Asia, maintained stringentpandemic restrictions well into 2022 even as other places embraced “living with Covid.” It only reopened its borders to overseas visitors last October, ending one of the world’s strictest border controls, more than two years after the pandemic began.
But the toll of the last few years continues to be deeply felt.
“Due to Covid-19, opportunities for contact with other people have decreased,” said a separate paper published February in Japan’s National Diet Library.
It added that the pandemic could have worsened existing social problems like loneliness, isolation and financial hardship, pointing to a rise in reported suicides, and child and domestic abuse.
Experts have previously told CNN that hikikomori is often thought to stem from psychological issues such as depression and anxiety, though societal factors play a role too, such as Japan’s patriarchal norms and demanding work culture.
But hikikomori had been around long before the pandemic, tied to Japan’s other looming problem: its population crisis.
Japan’s population has been in steady decline since its economic boom of the 1980s, with the fertility rate and annual number of births falling to new record lows several years in a row.
All the while, the elderly population is swelling as people age out of the workforce and into retirement, spelling trouble for an already stagnant economy. Things are so dire the prime minister warned this year that the country was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”
For families with hikikomori members, this poses a double challenge, dubbed the “8050 problem” – referring to social recluses in their 50s who rely on parents in their 80s.
Authorities have cited other factors, too, like the rising number of single adults as the appeal of dating and marriage wane, and weakening real-life ties as people move their communities online.
In 2018, Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare established a hikikomori regional support body to help those impacted by the phenomenon.
“We believe that it is important to restore ties with society while providing detailed support for those who have withdrawn by attending to their individual situations,” said Takumi Nemoto, then-head of the ministry, in 2019.
He added that local and national authorities had launched various services such as consultations and home visits to those affected by hikikomori, housing support for middle-aged and older people, and other community outreach efforts for “households that have difficulty reporting an SOS on their own.”
But these efforts were dwarfed by the challenges brought during the pandemic, prompting the government to carry out nationwide surveys on loneliness starting 2021, and to release a more intensive plan of countermeasures in December 2022.
Some measures include pushing public awareness and suicide prevention campaigns through social media; assigning more school counselors and social workers; and continuing a 24/7 phone consultation service for those with “weak social ties.”
There are also programs geared toward single-parent households such as meal plans for their children, housing loans, and planning services for those going through divorce.
Though the pandemic may have caused greater loneliness in society, it may also have simply shed light on long-existing problems that usually go overlooked, said the government in the plan.
“As the number of single-person households and elderly single-person households is expected to increase in the future, there is concern that the problem of loneliness and isolation will become more serious,” it said.
“Therefore, even if the spread of Covid-19 is brought under control in the future, it will be necessary for the government to … deal with the problems of loneliness and isolation inherent in Japanese society.”
Editor’s Note: Catherine Poisson is an associate professor of Romance Languages at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Her research has focused on literature and culture of France from the 19th century to the present. The views expressed in this article are her own. Read more opinion at CNN.
CNN
—
As a native of France who has lived in America for many years, I never fail to be shocked at the sight of older workers packing groceries at the supermarket. It suggests to me a deplorable lack of social supports that could allow aged people to enjoy a dignified retirement.
While it’s true that some people choose to work past retirement, most of us in this country, at some point or the other, have seen elderly people hard at work in occupations that people many years younger would find taxing.
And yet, many Americans somehow seem to be puzzled by the recent protests over retirement benefits that are roiling the country of my birth.
For the past three months, a spasm of demonstrations has gripped France over moves by the government to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. In recent days, French indignation led to a no-confidence vote that President Emmanuel Macron only narrowly survived. A new round of mass protests called by organized labor took place on Thursday — the ninth day of strikes since the bill was introduced in January.
Schools are closed because teachers are on strike. Transportation, including France’s usually reliable train service, is suddenly erratic because of the work stoppages. On top of all this, Parisians have seen their city’s streets strewn with tons of trash, after sanitation workers launched a labor action in solidarity.
I return to France for several weeks each year, but have lived in the United States some 30 years and know both countries well. One thing that seems clear to me is that the kind of upheaval playing out in the country of my birth would be almost unthinkable in America. Americans seem not to be able to understand the source of the boiling national rage felt by the French over the planned increase in the retirement age.
The closest analogy in the United States to anything like what my compatriots are experiencing would be the decision four decades ago to raise the age at which Social Security benefits are doled out.
And that’s exactly what happened: The US government announced in 1983 that it would gradually raise the age for collecting full Social Security retirement benefits from 65 to 67 over a 22-year period, beginning in 2000. Of course, older Americans care deeply about Social Security — and often cast their votes accordingly. Still, it’s hard to imagine such a change going over quite so easily in France.
For the most part, the demonstrations in France haven’t awakened Americans’ sense of empathy or solidarity. Instead, it has elicited expressions of sheer befuddlement. What on earth, my friends and acquaintances here ask, do the French have to complain about?
Life in France is not perfect. But French citizens have a generous health care system, which means workers pay next-to-nothing out of pocket for medical care. University education is nearly free. Unemployment benefits allow laid-off workers to sustain a reasonable quality of life while they look for their next jobs.
Yes, French workers have all of that. It is, in short, part of their birthright as citizens of France.
After World War II, both the retirement system and the National Health care system were introduced in France, and though there have been limitations over the last twenty years, social benefits still make it among the most envied countries in Europe in terms of its social programs.
If Americans are baffled by the French willingness to fight to hold onto these hard-won benefits, it is in part because the two countries have very different ideas about what it means to be a worker. In the United States, work is an identity. You are what you do.
For those of us raised in French culture, work refers to a finite period of life lasting roughly 40 years. And when that work is done, you are still young enough and fit enough to enjoy the best of what life has to offer. It’s the norm that retirement years — or decades actually — are spent traveling, caring for grandchildren or picking up new hobbies.
It’s part of our social compact: The French work hard during their most productive years during which time they pay what most Americans would consider usuriously high taxes. But then comes the much anticipated “Troisieme Age” — the “third age.” It’s a concept French people grow up with and cling to fervently for their entire lives.
The “first age” is childhood. During life’s “second age,” many of us are saddled with responsibilities of work and raising children. The third age however promises a good, healthy retirement free from want and worry — the kind of retirement many in the United States cannot even dream of. It is no wonder that people are willing to take to the streets to protect it.
The ongoing protests are also seen as a pushback against Macron’s imperious governing style. Years ago, he earned the nickname “Jupiter” — after the king of the Roman gods — as he was derided by some for his highhanded approach to governing — imposing his will, in the eyes of his critics, as if he were a sovereign rather than elected.
Macron says retirement reform is necessary because the system is near collapse. There’s some disagreement about that, however. The budget appears to be balanced for the next dozen years, although it’s true that falling birth rates and increasing longevity pose a problem that will have to be addressed.
Still, there are less draconian ways to fix problems posed by a future retirement fund shortfall. For starters, Macron might reverse his move to abolish the wealth tax. He might also reconsider corporate tax breaks that have benefited big business handsomely.
His administration’s use last week of a constitutional maneuver to bypass a vote in the National Assembly and raise the retirement age is an example of his imperial style. It’s an approach to governing that Macron has used multiple times, including when he passed a budget late last year. And as the protests wear on, there’s been another sign of government heavy-handedness: Macron now has resorted to the “requisition” of some striking workers — in short requiring them to return to their places of employment or risk losing their jobs.
Such moves are, in my view, an admission of political impotence rather than strength. The president has failed to see politics as the art of persuasion and is instead ruling by fiat. The brutal police crackdown on demonstrators protesting pension reforms led to hundreds of arrests in recent days, another sign that he lacks political deftness. The unions meanwhile show no sign of backing down, and are continuing to organize massive protests urging workers to stand firm and remain off the job.
So what’s next? Surely the French will continue to take to the streets, something they always do with great gusto. Beyond this, it’s hard to say how this upheaval ends.
There’s no question that the French are slow to embrace change. I am and will always remain staunchly French, although after many years in the US, I can see that my compatriots need to show greater flexibility. They hold on too long to obsolete aspects of their cherished way of life. It’s time for the French to abandon their “c’est tout ou rien” (“all or nothing”) approach as we negotiate what French society will look like in the future.
But then I read about the latest moves to raise the US retirement age to 70, and think that my protesting countrymen have a thing or two that they can teach workers in America when it comes to protecting the sanctity of their golden years.
When Kentaro Yokobori was born almost seven years ago, he was the first newborn in the Sogio district of Kawakami village in 25 years. His birth was like a miracle for many villagers.
Well-wishers visited his parents Miho and Hirohito for more than a week – nearly all of them senior citizens, including some who could barely walk.
“The elderly people were very happy to see [Kentaro], and an elderly lady who had difficulty climbing the stairs, with her cane, came to me to hold my baby in her arms. All the elderly people took turns holding my baby,” Miho recalled.
During that quarter century without a newborn, the village population shrank by more than half to just 1,150 – down from 6,000 as recently as 40 years ago – as younger residents left and older residents died. Many homes were abandoned, some overrun by wildlife.
Kawakami is just one of the countless small rural towns and villages that have been forgotten and neglected as younger Japanese head for the cities. More than 90% of Japanese now live in urban areas like Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto – all linked by Japan’s always-on-time Shinkansen bullet trains.
That has left rural areas and industries like agriculture, forestry, and farming facing a critical labor shortage that will likely get worse in the coming years as the workforce ages. By 2022, the number of people working in agriculture and forestry had declined to 1.9 million from 2.25 million 10 years earlier.
Yet the demise of Kawakami is emblematic of a problem that goes far beyond the Japanese countryside.
The problem for Japan is: people in the cities aren’t having babies either.
“Time is running out to procreate,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a recent press conference, a slogan that seems so far to have fallen short of inspiring the city dwelling majority of the Japanese public.
Amid a flood of disconcerting demographic data, he warned earlier this year the country was “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”
The country saw 799,728 births in 2022, the lowest number on record and barely more than half the 1.5 million births it registered in 1982. Its fertility rate – the average number of children born to women during their reproductive years – has fallen to 1.3 – far below the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population. Deaths have outpaced births for more than a decade.
And in the absence of meaningful immigration – foreigners accounted for just 2.2% of the population in 2021, according to the Japanese government, compared to 13.6% in the United States – some fear the country is hurtling toward the point of no return, when the number of women of child-bearing age hits a critical low from which there is no way to reverse the trend of population decline.
All this has left the leaders of the world’s third-largest economy facing the unenviable task of trying to fund pensions and health care for a ballooning elderly population even as the workforce shrinks.
Up against them are the busy urban lifestyles and long working hours that leave little time for Japanese to start families and the rising costs of living that mean having a baby is simply too expensive for many young people. Then there are the cultural taboos that surround talking about fertility and patriarchal norms that work against mothers returning to work.
Doctor Yuka Okada, the director of Grace Sugiyama Clinic in Tokyo, said cultural barriers meant talking about a woman’s fertility was often off limits.
“(People see the topic as) a little bit embarrassing. Think about your body and think about (what happens) after fertility. It is very important. So, it’s not embarrassing.”
Okada is one of the rare working mothers in Japan who has a highly successful career after childbirth. Many of Japan’s highly educated women are relegated to part-time or retail roles – if they reenter the workforce at all. In 2021, 39% of women workers were in part-time employment, compared to 15% of men, according to the OECD.
Tokyo is hoping to address some of these problems, so that working women today will become working mothers tomorrow. The metropolitan government is starting to subsidize egg freezing, so that women have a better chance of a successful pregnancy if they decide to have a baby later in life.
New parents in Japan already get a “baby bonus” of thousands of dollars to cover medical costs. For singles? A state sponsored dating service powered by Artificial Intelligence.
Whether such measures can turn the tide, in urban or rural areas, remains to be seen. But back in the countryside, Kawakami village offers a precautionary tale of what can happen if demographic declines are not reversed.
Along with its falling population, many of its traditional crafts and ways of life are at risk of dying out.
Among the villagers who took turns holding the young Kentaro was Kaoru Harumashi, a lifelong resident of Kawakami village in his 70s. The master woodworker has formed a close bond with the boy, teaching him how to carve the local cedar from surrounding forests.
“He calls me grandpa, but if a real grandpa lived here, he wouldn’t call me grandpa,” he said. “My grandson lives in Kyoto and I don’t get to see him often. I probably feel a stronger affection for Kentaro, whom I see more often, even though we are not related by blood.”
Both of Harumashi’s sons moved away from the village years ago, like many other young rural residents do in Japan.
“If the children don’t choose to continue living in the village, they will go to the city,” he said.
When the Yokoboris moved to Kawakami village about a decade ago, they had no idea most residents were well past retirement age. Over the years, they’ve watched older friends pass away and longtime community traditions fall by the wayside.
“There are not enough people to maintain villages, communities, festivals, and other ward organizations, and it is becoming impossible to do so,” Miho said.
“The more I get to know people, I mean elderly people, the more I feel sadness that I have to say goodbye to them. Life is actually going on with or without the village,” she said. “At the same time, it is very sad to see the surrounding, local people dwindling away.”
If that sounds depressing, perhaps it’s because in recent years, Japan’s battle to boost the birthrate has given few reasons for optimism.
Still, a small ray of hope may just be discernible in the story of the Yokoboris. Kentaro’s birth was unusual not only because the village had waited so long, but because his parents had moved to the countryside from the city – bucking the decades old trend in which the young increasingly plump for the 24/7 convenience of Japanese city life.
Some recent surveys suggest more young people like them are considering the appeals of country life, lured by the low cost of living, clean air, and low stress lifestyles that many see as vital to having families. One study of residents in the Tokyo area found 34% of respondents expressed an interest in moving to a rural area, up from 25.1% in 2019. Among those in their 20s, as many as 44.9% expressed an interest.
The Yokoboris say starting a family would have been far more difficult – financially and personally – if they still lived in the city.
Their decision to move was triggered by a Japanese national tragedy twelve years ago. On March 11, 2011, an earthquake shook the ground violently for several minutes across much of the country, triggering tsunami waves taller than a 10-story building that devastated huge swaths of the east coast and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Miho was an office worker in Tokyo at the time. She remembers feeling helpless as daily life in Japan’s largest city fell apart.
“Everyone was panicking, so it was like a war, although I have never experienced a war. It was like having money but not being able to buy water. All the transportation was closed, so you couldn’t use it. I felt very weak,” she recalled.
The tragedy was a moment of awakening for Miho and Hirohito, who was working as a graphic designer at the time.
“The things I had been relying on suddenly felt unreliable, and I felt that I was actually living in a very unstable place. I felt that I had to secure such a place by myself,” he said.
The couple found that place in one of Japan’s most remote areas, Nara prefecture. It is a land of majestic mountains and tiny townships, tucked away along winding roads beneath towering cedar trees taller than most of the buildings.
They quit their jobs in the city and moved to a simple mountain house, where they run a small bed and breakfast. He learned the art of woodworking and specializes in producing cedar barrels for Japanese sake breweries. She is a full-time homemaker. They raise chickens, grow vegetables, chop wood, and care for Kentaro, who’s about to enter the first grade.
The big question, for both Kawakami village and the rest of Japan: Is Kentaro’s birth a sign of better times to come – or a miracle birth in a dying way of life.
Senior citizens and other Social Security recipients will start getting a heftier monthly benefit next month due to an 8.7% annual cost-of-living adjustment aimed at helping them cope with high inflation.
The increase, the largest in more than 40 years, will boost retirees’ monthly payments by more than $140 to an estimated average of $1,827 for 2023.
The adjustment is the highest that most current beneficiaries have ever seen because it is based on an inflation metric from August through October, which was also around 40-year highs. Inflation has cooled somewhat since then, though prices remain elevated.
“I’m sure everyone is anxiously awaiting because prices are still high,” said Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare policy analyst at The Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. “Just shopping for food to feed people during the holidays is going to be a huge challenge.”
Many senior citizens depend heavily on Social Security. Some 42% of elderly women and 37% of elderly men rely on the monthly payments for at least half their income, according to the Social Security Administration.
Just when the beefed-up payment will arrive depends on recipients’ ages and birth dates. Those who received Social Security before May 1997 get their monthly benefit on the 3rd of each month. For more recent retirees, those whose birth dates are the 1st through the 10th of the month receive it on the second Wednesday, while those born on the 11th to 20th and the 21st to 31st of the month are paid the third and fourth Wednesdays, respectively.
Even though recipients received a sizable adjustment for this year, inflation ate away at the boost.
The increase fell short of actual inflation by an average of more than $42 – or 46% – every month or roughly $508 for the year, Johnson said.
Many retirees have been forced to turn to their savings or public assistance. One-third of seniors reported signing up for food stamps or visiting a food pantry over the past 12 months, compared with 22% in 2020, according to recent surveys by The Senior Citizens League. Also, 17% have applied for assistance with heating costs, compared with 10% in 2020.
This is not a new problem. Benefits have not kept up with the rising cost of living for years, even with the annual adjustments.
As of March, inflation has caused Social Security payments to lose 40% of their buying power since 2000, according to a study released earlier this year by the league. Monthly benefits would have to increase by $540 to maintain the same level of buying power as in 2000.
Senior citizens will also see their Medicare Part B premiums drop in 2023, the first time in more than a decade that the tab will be lower than the year before, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in the fall. It’s only the fourth time that premiums are declining since Medicare was created in 1965.
The standard monthly premiums will be $164.90 in 2023, a decrease of $5.20 from 2022.
Also, spending was lower than projected on other Part B items and services, which resulted in much larger reserves in the Part B trust fund, allowing the agency to limit future premium increases.
The big annual adjustment could end up hurting some seniors, Johnson said.
For instance, the resulting increase in income could push them above the thresholds for certain government benefits, such as Medicare Extra Help, Medicaid, food stamps and rental assistance, leaving them eligible for less or no aid. Or they could have to pay more for their Medicare Part B premiums, which are adjusted for income.
Also, they could have to start paying taxes – or owe higher levies – on their Social Security benefits if their income rises above a certain level.
Further, the increase could leave Social Security’s finances on even shakier ground. The combined trust funds that pay benefits to retirees, survivors and the disabled will be depleted by 2035 and only able to distribute roughly three-quarters of promised payments unless Congress addresses the program’s long-term funding shortfall, according to the most recent Social Security trustees’ report.
Editor’s Note: Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
Hong Kong CNN
—
China’s zero-Covid policy, which stalled the world’s second-largest economy and sparked a wave of unprecedented protests, is now being dismantled as Beijing on Wednesday released sweeping revisions to its draconian measures that ultimately failed to bring the virus to heel.
The new guidelines keep some restrictions in place but largely scrap the health code system that required people to show negative Covid-19 tests for daily activities and roll back mass testing. They also allow some Covid-19 cases and close contacts to skip centralized quarantine.
They come after a number of cities in recent days started to lift some of the harsh controls that dictated – and heavily restricted – daily life for nearly three years in China.
But while the changes mark a significant shift – and bring relief for many in the public who’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the high costs and demands of zero-Covid – another reality is also clear: China is underprepared for the surge in cases it could now see.
Experts say thoughmuch is still unknown about how the next weeks and months will progress, China has fallen short on preparations like bolstering the elderly vaccination rate, upping surge and intensive care capacity in hospitals, and stockpiling antiviral medications.
While the Omicron variant is milder than previous strains and China’s overall vaccination rate is high, even a small number of severe cases among vulnerable and under-vaccinated groups like the elderly could overwhelm hospitals if infections spike across the country of 1.4 billion, experts say.
“This is a looming crisis – the timing is really bad … China now has to relax much of its measures during the winter (overlapping with flu season), so that was not as planned,” said Xi Chen, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health in the United States, pointing to what was likely an acceleration in China’s transition, triggered by public discontent.
The guidelinesreleased Wednesday open up a new chapter in the country’s epidemic control, three years after the first cases of Covid-19 were detected in central China’s Wuhan and following protests against the zero-Covid policy across the country starting late last month.
Where China once controlled cases by requiring testing and clear health codes for entry into a number of public places and for domestic travel, those codes will no longer be checked except for in a handful of locations like medical institutions and schools. Mass testing will now be rolled back for everyone except for those in high-risk areas and high-risk positions. People who test positive for Covid-19 but have mild or asymptomatic cases and meet certain conditions can quarantine at home, instead of being forced to go to centralized quarantine centers, as can close contacts.
Locations classified by authorities as “high risk” can still be locked down, but these lockdowns must now be more limited and precise, according to the new guidelines, which were circulated by China’s state media.
The changes mark a swift about-face, following mounting public discontent, economic costs and record case numbers in recent weeks. They come after a top official last week first signaled the country could move away from the zero-Covid policy it had long poured significant resources into – though another official on Wednesday said the measures were a “proactive optimization,” not “reactive” when asked in a press briefing.
“China has pursued this policy for so long, they’re now between a rock and a hard place,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the US. “They don’t have good options in either direction anymore. They had really hoped that this epidemic globally would run its course, and they could survive without impact. And that hasn’t happened.”
As restrictions are relaxed, and the virus spreads across the country, China is “going to have to go through a period of pain in terms of illness, serious illness, deaths and stress on the health care system” as was seen elsewhere in the world earlier in the pandemic, he added.
Since the global vaccination campaign and the emergence of the Omicron variant, health experts have questioned China’s adherence to zero-Covid and pointed out the unsustainability of the strategy, which tried to use mass testing and surveillance, lockdowns and quarantines to stop a highly contagious virus.
But as some restrictions are lifted, in what appears to be a haphazard transition following years of focus on meticulously controlling the virus, experts say change may be coming before China has made the preparations its health officials have admitted are needed.
“An uncontrolled epidemic (one which only peaks when the virus starts running out of people to infect) … will pose serious challenges to the health care system, not only in terms of managing the small fraction of Covid cases that are severe, but also in the ‘collateral damage’ to people with other health conditions who have delayed care as a consequence,” said Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong.
But even with easing restrictions, Cowling said, it was “difficult to predict” how quickly infections will spread though China, because there are still some measures in place and some people will change their behavior – such as staying at home more often.
“And I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that stricter measures are reintroduced to combat rising cases,” he said.
Experts agree that allowing the virus to spread nationally would be a significant shift for a country that up until this point has officially reported 5,235 Covid-19 deaths since early 2020 – a comparatively low figure globally that has been a point of pride in China, where state media until recently trumpeted the dangers of the virus to the public.
Modeling from researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University published in the journal Nature Medicine in May projected that more than 1.5 million Chinese could die within six months if Covid-19 restrictions were lifted and there was no access to antiviral drugs, which have been approved in China.
However, death rates could fall to around the levels of seasonal flu, if almost all elderly people were vaccinated and antiviral medications were broadly used, the authors said.
Last month, China released a list of measures to bolster health systems against Covid-19, which included directives to increase vaccination in the elderly, stockpile antiviral treatments and medical equipment, and expand critical care capacity – efforts that experts say take time and are best accomplished prior to an outbreak.
“(Is China prepared?) If you look at surge capacity three years on and the stockpiling of effective antivirals – no. If you talk about the triage procedures – they are not strictly enforced – and if you talk about the vaccination rate for the elderly, especially those aged 80 and older, it is also overall no,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Chinese authorities, he added, would likely be closely assessing outcomes like the death rate to decide policy steps going forward.
The US has at least 25 critical care beds per 100,000 people, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – by contrast, China has fewer than four for the same number, health authorities there said last month.
The system also provides limited primary care, which could drive even moderately sick people to hospitals as opposed to calling a family doctor – putting more strain on hospitals, according to Yale’s Chen.
Meanwhile, weak medical infrastructure in rural areas could foster crises there, especially as testing is reduced and younger people living in cities return to rural hometowns to visit elderly family members over the Lunar New Year next month, he said.
While China’s overall vaccination rate is high, its elderly are also less protected than in some other parts of the world, where the oldest and most vulnerable to dying from Covid-19 were prioritized for vaccination. Some countries have already rolled out fourth or fifth doses for at-risk groups.
By China’s accounting, more than 86% of China’s population over 60 are fully vaccinated, according to China’s National Health Commission, and booster rates are lower, with more than 45 million of the fully vaccinated elderly yet to receive an additional shot. Around 25 million elderly who have not received any shot, according to a comparison of official population figures and November 28 vaccination data.
For the most at-risk over 80 age group, around two-thirds were fully vaccinated by China’s standards, but only 40% had received booster shots as of November 11, according to state media.
But while China refers to third doses for its widely used inactivated vaccines as booster shots, a World Health Organization vaccine advisory group last year recommended that elderly people taking those vaccines receive three doses in their initial course to ensure sufficient protection.
The inactivated vaccines used in China have been found to elicit lower levels of antibody response as compared to others used overseas, and many countries using the doses have paired them with more protective mRNA vaccines, which China has not approved for use.
Cowling said evidence from Hong Kong’s outbreak, however, showed China’s inactivated vaccines worked well to prevent severe disease, but it was critical that the elderly receive three doses in the initial course, as recommended by the World Health Organization. They should then use a fourth dose on top of that to keep immunity high, he added.
Top health officials on November 28 announced a new plan to bolster elderly vaccination rates, but such measures will take time, as will other preparations for a surge.
Minimizing the worst outcomes in a transition out of zero-Covid depends on that preparation, according to Cowling.From that perspective, he said, “it doesn’t look like it would be a good time to relax the policies.”
With the rise in repo rate along with the widening credit deposit gap, banks have started offering higher interest rates to attract more customers. For example, Bank of Baroda has today announced the launch of the Baroda Tiranga Plus Deposit Scheme, offering higher interest rates of up to 7.50 per cent p.a. for 399 days with effect from 1st November 2022, which includes 0.50 per cent p.a. for senior citizens and 0.25 per cent for non-callable deposits. The scheme is applicable on retail term deposits below Rs 2 crore. The bank has also increased the premium on Non-Callable Retail Term Deposits from 0.15 per cent p.a. to 0.25 per cent p.a. Hence, non-callable deposits will now receive 0.25 per cent p.a. extra.
Similarly, Bank of India increased FD rates on Tuesday and is now offering up to 7.75 per cent interest rate on their ‘Star Super Triple Seven Fixed Deposit’, which is a limited-time offer. Under the newly launched Fixed Deposit Scheme, depositors can earn an interest rate of 7.25 per cent and up to 7.75 per cent for senior citizens on a deposit for 777 days. In addition to this new offering, the bank has raised the interest rate on its existing 555-day fixed deposit scheme to 6.30 per cent. On other time buckets from 180 days to less than 5 years, the bank has raised the interest by 25 basis points.
Ajay K. Khurana, Executive Director, Bank of Baroda said, “In a rising interest rate environment, we are pleased to offer a higher interest rate to consumers so that they earn more on their savings. The Baroda Tiranga Plus Deposit Scheme offers higher interest rates and assured returns. On our Non-Callable Deposits, the Bank has also decided to increase the Non-Callable Premium from 0.15 to 0.25 per cent on retail term deposits, providing further benefits to customers.”
Sept. 29, 2022 — The Biden administration has announced $8 billion in public and private commitments toward fighting hunger and improving nutrition in the United States.
“This goal is within our reach,” President Biden said Wednesday during the first White House summit on hunger in 50 years. “In America, no child should go to bed hungry. No parent should die of disease that can be prevented.”
The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Healthcomes as food costs are rising, supply chain issues remain from the pandemic, and food-related ailments continue. The administration announced a “bold goal” of ending hunger by 2030 and increasing healthy eating and physical activity.
Among the key proposals:
Expand free school meals to 9 million more children by 2032
Allow more people to get food stamps
Help with transportation for people who don’t live near grocery stores and farmers markets
Increase money for nutrition programs helping seniors
Reduce food waste, since a third of all food in the United States goes to waste, the White House says.
Many of the efforts need congressional approval. Biden can take some action through executive order.
The Washington Post reported, “The pervasiveness of diet-related diseases creates broader problems for the country, White House officials said, hampering military readiness, workforce productivity, academic achievement and mental health.”
The newspaper also reported that the U. S. Department of Agriculture says that 10.2% of U.S. households were “food insecure” in 2021. That means they didn’t have enough food to meet everyone’s needs.
CNN said that more than 100 organizations have committed to help pay for Biden’s initiatives, including hospitals, health care associations, tech companies, philanthropies, and the food industry.
At least $2.5 billion will go to start-up companies focused on finding solutions to hunger and food insecurity, according to the White House.
There’s a reason why politicians have long shied away from addressing Social Security’s massive financial problems. The commonly proposed solutions involve cutting benefits or raising taxes, which would spark an outcry from a range of powerful constituents, including senior citizens and the business community.
The situation, however, is only growing more critical. The combined Social Security trust funds are projected to run dry in 2034, according to the latest annual report from the entitlement program’s trustees that was released last week. At that time, the funds’ reserves will be depleted, and the program’s continuing income will only cover 80% of benefits owed.
The estimate is one year earlier than the trustees projected last year.
About 66 million Americans received Social Security benefits in 2022. It’s a vital lifeline for many of them. Some 42% of elderly women and 37% of elderly men rely on the monthly payments for at least half their income, according to the Social Security Administration.
Though congressional Republicans’ drive to cut spending amid debt ceiling negotiations this year has prompted renewed interest in the entitlement’s finances, little is likely to happen, experts say. The insolvency date is still too far in the future.
The last time Congress enacted a major overhaul, in 1983, Social Security was only months away from being able to pay full benefits. At that time, Democratic lawmakers who controlled the House agreed with Senate Republicans and then-GOP President Ronald Reagan to increase payroll taxes and gradually raise the full retirement age from 65 to 67, among other reforms.
While President Joe Biden has promised to strengthen Social Security and defend it from any cuts by Republicans, he has yet to lay out a concrete vision for protecting the program. It was not included in his annual budget proposal this year, though he did suggest a financial fix for Medicare, which is facing its own solvency issues.
Asked about the president’s plan, the White House said that the budget “clearly states his principles for strengthening Social Security.”
“He looks forward to working with Congress to responsibly strengthen Social Security by ensuring that high-income individuals pay their fair share, without increasing taxes on anyone making less than $400,000,” said Robyn Patterson, assistant press secretary at the White House.
A multitude of proposals have been floated over the years to address Social Security’s shortfall, many of which have multiple measures.
Several options focus on saving the entitlement program money, though left-leaning advocates and senior citizen groups are quick to point out that these moves are actually benefit cuts that they would strenuously oppose.
One common proposal is raising the retirement age. Currently, Americans can start collecting Social Security benefits at 62, though doing so would reduce their lifetime payments by as much as 30%.
The full retirement age, which had been 65 for much of the program’s existence, is slowly rising to 67 for Americans born in 1960 or later.
Some policymakers advocate for raising the full retirement age to 70 for future retirees, bringing it more in line with changes in life expectancy. That would mean those retiring earlier than that would get smaller monthly checks than under current law.
Doing so could wipe out about a third of the Social Security trust fund’s 75-year deficit.
Last year, the conservative Republican Study Committee released a budget plan that called for raising the full retirement age for future retirees at a rate of three months per year until it is increased to 70 for those born in 1978. It would then link the retirement age to future increases in life expectancy, as well as adjust the number of working years included in benefit calculations to 40 years, up from 35 years.
Other options include reducing benefits for higher-income Americans, which was also included in the Republican Study Committee’s budget plan.
New retirees’ Social Security benefits are one-third higher today than they were for folks who retired 20 years ago, even after accounting for inflation, according to Andrew Biggs, senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. Plus, the maximum Social Security benefit in the US is two to three times higher than the maximum retirement benefit in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Biggs supports placing a cap on the maximum benefit that the highest-earning retirees can receive. The maximum benefit this year is about $43,000 and will rise to $59,000 by 2050, he said. Though such a cap would only solve about 10% to 15% of the long-term solvency gap, Biggs argues it’s one step, and it only affects those who he says don’t depend on the benefits.
“We’re going way, way beyond a pure safety net program,” Biggs said at a recent webinar hosted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a government watchdog group. “Here we’re looking at a retirement program for middle income and upper income people.”
Other suggestions that have been floated include changing the formulas that determine the benefits Americans get upon retirement or the annual cost-of-living adjustment retirees receive to slow the growth of payments.
The main way to bring more money into the Social Security system is to increase the amount of payroll taxes collected.
A proposal popular among Democrats and left-leaning experts is to lift the wage cap so that higher-income earners have to shell out more in payroll taxes.
The Social Security tax rate of 6.2% is levied on both employers and employees, for a total rate of 12.4%. However, in 2023, it’s only applied to annual wages of up to $160,200. (By contrast, Medicare’s 2.9% total payroll tax rate is applied to all wages, and higher-income Americans are subject to an additional 0.9% Medicare tax.)
When payroll taxes for Social Security were first collected in 1937, about 92% of earnings from jobs covered by the program were subject to the payroll tax, according to the Congressional Budget Office. By 2020, that figure had fallen to about 83% as income inequality has increased.
Several congressional Democrats have floated proposals to raise the amount of wages subject to the payroll tax. Rep. John Larson of Connecticut wants to apply the payroll tax to wages above $400,000, which he says would extend the program’s solvency by nine years.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, introduced a bill earlier this year that would make multiple changes to Social Security, including subjecting all income above $250,000 to the payroll tax and applying it to investment and business income. They say their reforms would extend the entitlement’s solvency for 75 years.
But changing the wage cap could also alter the fundamental design of Social Security, in which retirees’ benefits are tied to the amount of taxes they paid into the system while working.
For instance, the proposal from Sanders and Warren would not credit the additional taxed earnings toward benefits. That would increase the beneficial impact on solvency but would also raise resistance among some advocates who believe the link between taxes and benefits should be maintained.
Another option is raising the payroll tax rate. Increasing it to a total of 16% would just about assure 75 years of solvency, said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Most lawmakers, however, would not find that type of tax hike very palatable, particularly not Republicans who control the House.
While experts disagree on the best way to address Social Security’s shortfall, one thing they are generally united on is that waiting will only result in having to employ harsher solutions. But that isn’t spurring elected officials to action.
“Nobody’s acting as if that’s something they’ve got to take seriously,” Biggs said. “So I’ll just be honest and say I’m worried about how this thing plays out.”
