More than 10 million older adults are now living in poverty as Social Security cuts loom: 'I don't know how anyone is making it'

By Jessica Hall

Even seniors with savings are struggling to get by

About 19 million older adult households don't have enough money each month to meet their needs, according to the Elder Index.

Kenneth Heideman is spending $120 a month more on gas and groceries than a year ago, but he said that's just the start of higher costs he's absorbed in retirement.

"I'm aware of higher gas prices - how can you not be? And supermarket prices are insidious," said Heideman, 67, who lives in Vermont. "It's easy not to be aware of all the other things you buy getting more costly because you don't buy them as often - but the increases are there. I had work done to my car and it was higher because of tariffs. The cost of clothing - everything - is higher."

"I'm kind of on the edge, but there's a lot of people who have it worse than me. I've had to draw down my savings already, which is not what I wanted to be doing," Heideman said.

The higher costs on everyday items, from gas and groceries to housing and healthcare, come as more Americans are struggling to make ends meet - especially older adults.

Between 2020 and 2025, the percentage of Americans 65 and older living in poverty increased from 9.4% to 15.4%, according to the Census Bureau. That was the largest increase for any age group and marked the first time more than 10 million older Americans fell below the poverty threshold.

"It should really stop us in our tracks," said Claire Casey, president of the AARP Foundation.

Those elder-poverty metrics reflect the Census Bureau's supplemental poverty measure, which includes resources such as food assistance known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, housing subsidies and energy assistance, and subtracts necessary expenses such as taxes and medical expenses.

'Older adults are not financially resilient. And life is unpredictable.'Jessica Johnston, National Council on Aging

The poverty level in 2026 for a single person is $15,960 a year, while for a household of two it's $21,640.

People aged 60 and older who earn $20,000 or less per year die nine years earlier than those who earn $120,000 a year, according to research from the National Council on Aging and the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

"Poverty is not just about quality of life. It literally robs older Americans of longevity," said Ramsey Alwin, president and chief executive of the National Council on Aging.

People who have savings or investments to tap into are among the more fortunate. For 27% of recipients, Social Security is their only income, according to data from Pew Research Center, making it harder to withstand an emergency.

"Social Security was the largest antipoverty program in 2025, especially for those 65 years and older," according to a report by the Census Bureau. Social Security lifted 28.8 million people out of poverty in 2025, the Census Bureau said.

Yet Social Security faces a crisis. Benefits will be cut by 26% starting in 2032, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan federal agency that provides Congress with independent analysis of budgetary and economic issues. The cuts will be automatic unless Congress acts first to strengthen the system.

As of August, the average Social Security retirement benefit was about $2,087 a month, according to the Social Security Administration. The 26% cut predicted by the CBO would be the equivalent of a $542-a-month drop in benefits in today's dollars. The actual cuts would be higher in 2032 due to inflation.

'How do we stretch this as long as it can go?'

A cut to Social Security benefits would trigger an outcry among older adults, Heideman said.

"You're going to see rioting in the streets," Heideman said

Any cuts to Social Security benefits "would be devastating," said Paul Rosenthal, 74, a retired physical therapist who lives in Oregon.

Rosenthal owns a manufactured home on land that he rents for $800 a month in rural Oregon. That rent goes up 6% a year.

"There's people in this park who can't afford to stay here anymore in a home they own. I don't know how anyone is making it," said Rosenthal, who added that his individual retirement account is being depleted faster than he anticipated.

His biggest financial hit this past year was the five trips he made to Portland, Ore., which is 280 miles away from his home, for medical procedures. The trips entailed hotel stays because he couldn't manage the round-trip drive in a day. The extra costs of those trips meant Rosenthal and his wife had to cancel a planned road trip to Washington state for vacation.

"That's a reality when you live in a rural area where healthcare isn't available," said Rosenthal, who suffers from Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. "As you get older, one's health becomes an issue and it all just gets harder."

He also had to fix a leaking roof. "If you have a house, you know something is always going to come up," Rosenthal said.

"The price of groceries - it's just completely thrown the budget off. Now every month, it's about 'how do we stretch this as long as it can go?'" Rosenthal said.

Census data questioned

Some argue that the Census Bureau data paints an overly dire portrait of elder poverty.

"The Census poverty figures for the elderly are essentially useless, because they systematically undercount the income that retirees receive from IRAs and 401(k)s. In Census surveys, 'income' is defined as 'regular' payments, meaning that if you draw down your retirement account as-needed then it's not counted as income. This problem applies both to the official poverty threshold and the supplemental poverty measure," said Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute think tank.

Biggs said the Census Bureau does produce more accurate figures that match household-survey responses to administrative data, including tax records. The most recent figures are for 2021. But in that year, the supplemental poverty measure, or SPM, indicated that elder poverty was at 10.6%, while the more accurate measure using tax records showed that poverty was only at 6.1%, Biggs said.

Still others contend that the poverty data undercounts the extent of financial struggles among older adults.

About 19 million older adult households don't have enough money each month to meet their needs, according to the Elder Index, which was developed by the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, that measures the income that older adults need to meet their basic needs.

"The increased cost of groceries, Medicare premiums, heat, gas - it's all squeezing older adults," said Jessica Johnston, senior strategist for economic well-being at the National Council on Aging.

"Even if people want to argue about the SPM, 19 million can't afford the basics. We're seeing older adults struggling to decide what to pay for first. Rent? Splitting pills to make their medication stretch. Groceries? Many older people are managing at least one chronic condition and food is crucial to managing that," Johnston said. "Older adults are not financially resilient. And life is unpredictable. There's unexpected costs and expenses, long-term-care costs."

One-third of older adults with low income could not cover an emergency expense of $100 from savings, while 52% could not cover $500, according to the AARP Foundation Economic Security Monitor.

"Rising U.S. elder poverty is not a problem of people failing. It reflects the failure of our retirement system to provide adequate pensions and savings opportunities to ordinary working Americans," said Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist and professor at the New School in New York who's an expert on retirement.

"If we further cut Social Security, poverty rates and the number of elders in poverty will rise. Our vulnerability comes from the failed part of the system that is not Social Security and from the Social Security cuts enacted in 1983. People retiring now receive lower benefits at the same claiming age because the full retirement age was raised to 67. We are reaping the sour harvest from the 401(k) system and the 1983 Social Security cuts." Ghilarducci said. 'We would be imposing benefit reductions on a population that is already experiencing rising poverty."

When older people cannot support themselves, the costs don't disappear - they shift to their adult children, their grandchildren, public assistance programs and communities, she said.

"Elder poverty is not just an individual tragedy. It is a national economic problem," Ghilarducci said.

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-Jessica Hall

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10-02-26 1149ET

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