AARP Hearing Center
In the US are many new retirees who are stuck at minimum Social Security benefits forever, due to having to start their payments early at 62 in order to have ANY income at all. These decisions are not made of freedom but of necessity - decisions made under duress.
With no other income, the arithmetic does not work out at all for living. This is existence, not living! If one is forced to do file early and receive minimum benefits, due to bad economics, the benefits need to increase each year according to what the rate is for that year, as if one is just entering the system, until the maximum is reached at 65 or 66, for those who have no other income at all! Lest we forget - This is America! Where are the organizations who "say" they support the well being of seniors?
The availability of actual assistance is near nil, with none of that offering anything more than emergency or band aid "help". (Don't be a single male with no children!) All the government hype about ending homelessness, helping those who have the least, is just hype, as the "Tale of the Tape" reveals the actual story - Homelessness and need have increased drastically among have-nots. (An exhaustive and continuing, study is done of Connect-To-Care, the Dallas government's excuse for a help mechanism, which showed their listed "resources" to be the same overworked, underfunded, organizations that have always been there.) There has been repackaging of the same "resources" lists in other websites and organizations, while the resources themselves remain unchanged or less funded, leaving those who actually need help the most, in the same or worse overall shape. If there are little to no actual resources available, which is the case in reality, what do these organizations actually do? Jobs for those who have! Notice how many low income people are employed in any of these.
With the baby-boomer generation coming into retirement age, there is a large number of retirees just entering the social security system, who spent their working lives at relatively unskilled jobs that offered no retirement plan, no insurance, no 401s, and the like, that paid so little that saving was out of the question. This was influenced by the full scale and unregulated "outsourcing" of jobs, and the demise of unions. Life after 50 meant jobs and job offers, lessened or ceased altogether. This economic forced many into accepting less than livable Social Security, made and is making, a large group of retirement age have-nots who are out of work and in need of available assistance.
(Of sour note is the many who are plagued by student loans whose collection arms are more than willing to accept and/or forcably take, from those who who have no other income than Social Security and/or who are below the poverty level, leaving that individual with nothing at all, below where rent can be paid, food purchased - a loose cannon. If you are living on the edge, not making enough for basics, this particular organization will still try and take from you, oblivious to the fact they can be rendering a person homeless!)
And no, retraining doesn't get you a job or help with age discrimination. The fact that a senior has to ask someone for a job in the first place instead of having them call you, is the real issue. To say there is no age discrimination is denying reality in many, if not, most, cases. Experience is relatively meaningless after a certain age.
The question is Not how anyone got to retirement without having, but how to remediate it starting, Now, without looking at how and/or, especially, why, that individual got to retirement age in this shape in the first place.
I think that's called - Non Judgemental. Remember that one. Takin a real beatin since the internet! So has honesty.
And especially, of question, why this subject is one that so many don't want to address, see others address, have commentary/dialogue about, and why the refusal to offer explanation to back up this "reasoning"/stance for not wanting such discussion. If a stance is solid, it stands on its own merit, and there is no fear, no reasoning for not putting it up for scrutiny! Of question is the unwillingness-refusal to help anyone who doesn't have, without knowing their pedigree, or more.
What happened to helping someone who doesn't have, without knowing, or even trying to find out, how they came not to have? Not just band-aid motion but sufficient to help fellow humans get themselves out of the cycle of poverty itself.
- I believe you and I may have discussed this before - Seniors on limited income can take that amount and change their lives so that it can go further.
- 1. Work longer if they can - course, then you have to keep in mind taxation on the SS benefit if early retirement was taken.
Yes we have. Working longer is more than it seems. If you are not working and don't have any money at all, what can you do? That one hits hard and fast once one hits the streets. Homelessness is a loop where there is no money to look for work, the bottom to the cycle of poverty.
So what to do? No one strategy works for everyone, but here's one step that helped me forward in a big way: A person, especially a homeless person, needs a vehicle. Why?
Sounds silly but is very true, especially in a country built on mobility. One has to get to the job and an apartment won't get you there, Duh 
. The vehicle that did the trick for me was only a broken 80s small pickup found for junk price. It didn't run but I knew how to fix it. That and some camping gear got me to the minimum wage labor pools and eventually to other towns and better jobs. And no, that "good" job has still not raised its head, nor am I "expecting" it to. The bottom time drilled the tome home that one can't wait on jobs to come to them - Jobs have to be either created or found.
Next step? We'll see.
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