Some facts about senior citizens in USA

Some  facts  about   senior  citizens in USA

Compiled by 

P.R.Ramachander

This  is  my fourth visit  to USA in the past  several years. I was given to understand that parents  in usa  after  they  become old  never live  with their children and those   who do not have any savings suffer  very much as the children do not  contribute to the  upkeep of their parents .But since USA is a welfare state, if some one does not have any income, the government was supposed to look after  them. , Several  huge  retirement  paid home complexes  are there in USA housing them. Since many of the inmates may  not be able to drive, there are hourly  bus  facilities  from such complexes to the malls as well as places of entertainment.  Whenever they are standing waiting for buses, the  buses halt at the bus stop and the step of the bus  is made to touch the floor, the driver comes out of the bus and assists  them to sit  comfortably. 

Recently  every week  I used to go  to a   huge  vegetable  and fruit  shop called  “farmers” normally  around 10 am.  Every time  seeing  the  very old people  coming to shop there , I have literally  shed tears for  they were extremely old and extremely  weak and not  even able to walk.

 So I decided to do some  arm chair  research  on  them, Here is what  I have been able to find out.

1.Only  in 29 out of 50 states of USA , sons and daughters do have  the legal  responsibility  to look  after their parents.

2.In about 30% of American homes , the  parents  were living  with their  children.

3. . Of the older adults who were living outside nursing homes or hospitals in 2010, nearly one third (11.3 million) lived alone. More than one-fourth (27 percent) of women ages 65 to 74 lived alone in 2014, and this share jumped  to 42 percent among women ages 75 to 84, and to 56 percent among women ages 85 and older.(do men die earlier?)

4. .  Nearly one  person in ten lives in poverty, but many are financially secure. Todays seniors will live longer in old age than any generation in history. Many will live to healthy old ages but one in five will need personal care after they reach age 85,  While we think of seniors as retirees, more older adults are working  for living there  in recent decades.

 5,Very   large  number of senior  citizens  there  would  not be  able  to afford  good and efficient medical care as it  is exorbitantly costly. “Poor people don’t have insurance in America, The supposedly free Medical insurance given to the poor is very close to being a fake insurance and big corporations like Managed Care corporations La C are, Healthnet etc. are the only true beneficiaries. Poor people have very limited choices when it comes to receiving care in America. For starters, they can’t choose where they want to receive care or what doctor to receive care from.”( https://www.quora.com/How-do-poor-people-pay-for-healthcare-in-the-United-States)

6,Only one out  of 5 people older than 70  have  earnings, The average  income  of those  who do not work and who  are above 70 is about 1500$ per month.( http://www.pensionrights.org/publications/statistic/income-today%E2%80%99s-older-adults )

7. Obesity rates among older adults have been increasing, standing at about 40 percent of 65-to-74-year-olds in 2009-2012.

8.More older adults are divorced compared with previous generations. The share of divorced women ages 65 and older increased from 3 percent in 1980 to 13 percent in 2015, and for men from 4 percent to 11 percent during the same period.

9.Demand for elder care will also be fueled by a steep rise in the number of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease, which could nearly triple by 2050 to 14 million, from 5 million in 2013