Seniors In Crisis

      Yesterday, I spent an hour and a half in line at my local food shelf with a lovely lady named Nadia and heard her story, a story that is all too common among America's Senior Citizens today. Nadia is 73 years old and worked her entire life as a waitress before finally retiring at age 69 because her body just couldn't do the job anymore. Jobs like waiting tables don't provide 401K or pension plans, so Nadia now depends 100% on her Social Security benefits that are pretty minimal since waitressing jobs generally pay less than minimum wage.

     Nadia told me with tears in her eyes, how she had never been to a food shelf before and was embarrassed to be so desperate for food that she finally had to forget about pride and receive charity. She told me how after paying her mortgage payment, bills & prescription costs every month that she is left with only around $30 left over to purchase food each month and that she and her 2 cats have been living off Malt-O-Meal and dry toast for almost a year now. She told me that she ran out of Malt-O-Meal a day earlier and finally swallowed her pride for the sake of her starving kitties.

     When the food shelf finally opened up, I help Nadia get all of the information and phone numbers she needs to apply for food stamps, Energy Assistance and Medical assistance. She had no idea that she was even eligible for these programs and hopefully they will help make her life a little easier. We also discussed how she might be better off selling her house and moving into a subsidized Seniors Apartment.

     The thing is, Nadia's story is not uncommon anymore...millions of Seniors across America are struggling to make ends meet. Social Security payments are not enough for most Seniors to actually live on. More and more Seniors are needing to rely on help like food stamps and food shelves, even though they worked their entire adult lives. I meet Seniors like Nadia all the time, people who worked hard their whole lives only to end up struggling to survive during their so called Golden Years. Most would still be working if their bodies allowed or if there were jobs that would hire them.

     Cutting funding to Social Security, Medicare or the many Social Programs that our Seniors depend on just to barely survive to fund tax cuts for Millionaires and Billionaires is criminal in my opinion. Our Seniors are not lazy bums living off the system, they earned their Social Security & the Social Security program should be paying them a livable amount, not just barely paying them enough to subsist on. Something really needs to change in the United States if we the people allow our Seniors to struggle just so a handful of Millionaires and Billionaires can have gigantic tax breaks.