How Much “Security” Is There?
OF COURSE, the benefits that come from social security programs vary from country to country. In a few places it seems enough to provide decent living conditions.
For example, an observer in Sweden said of that nation’s large benefits: “Many of those who have pensions say that they never before had it so good financially as they now have it.”
But countries like that are the exception. The general condition even in wealthy Western lands is that those trying to live mainly on social security payments are in deep trouble.
A Drop in Living Standards
Most older persons who retire with little income other than social security experience a significant drop in their standard of living.
During 1975 in Canada, one basic government old-age pension plan paid a single person having no other income about $210 a month, with a retired couple getting about $400 a month, adjusted for inflation. But these payments make it apparent that persons who had been making several times that while working would suffer a sharp drop in their standard of living if they did not have some other substantial source of retirement income.
That is often what happens in most Western industrial lands. A retired person usually receives in monthly payments far less than he was making in salary when working. In Australia, for instance, the wage averaged over $150 a week during 1975. But the basic payment to a retired single person was $36 a week, with retired couples getting $60 a week. In the United States, the average skilled worker made more in a week than the average retired person received in a month under social security.
The Elderly Are Hurting
In these Western industrial nations, the largest group of people living in poverty is usually the aged. And their situation has become worse in recent years due to rampant inflation.
In Canada the Toronto Star reported that “about 50 per cent of Canada’s aged live in poverty,” according to a government survey. They did not have sufficient income “to live with dignity and freedom from want.” It noted that “poverty among the elderly is two to three times the level of other age groups.” The Star also said: “The trouble is that most senior citizens do not have a company pension independent of public assistance.”
The problem is severe when the elderly cannot live with their own families, such as their children, or do not own a house that is paid for. An Australian observer says of such pensioners: “Where persons have to pay high rent for their accommodations, they are in a very difficult economic situation.” Those who must pay today’s high rents, or who still have substantial mortgage payments on a house, find these costs a crushing burden.
That is why many “senior citizens” feel that they have been thrown on society’s scrapheap after a lifetime of hard work. One Canadian who headed an official investigation team said: “I found, again and again, that the loss of even marginally effective income at retirement robs people of a decent standard of living and reduces the quality of the lives which they led before retirement.” He added: “They are the forgotten people of Canadian society.”
The mayor of one city there stated: “I had one old fellow in to see me who represented 140 pensioners. He broke down and pleaded for help. It was terrible to see a man who spent his whole life working stuck in a situation where he was frightened he couldn’t pay his rent.” In another city an official said that he had been visited by an elderly woman who “wept uncontrollably” in his office and admitted that she was so short of money that “she had to eat pet food.”
“The Problems Never Stop”
One old person in this situation stated: “I am so tired of fighting, so frustrated, so upset. We stay in the house always not to spend, we eat so cheaply, and my wife, she cries a lot, trying to understand. I used to think the old had no troubles. Now am old and the problems never stop.”
The Toronto Star reported of Canada’s elderly: “Many of them die alone in a room. Many of the rooms are drab and unkempt. It is not unusual to find that some have died in a back lane.”
Regarding the United States, columnist Jack Anderson wrote: “Society shunts its undesirable elderly into corners, to await death alone and uncared for. America simply does not seem to care. And now there is a grim new phenomenon: the old are beginning to drift out of the corners and crowd into sordid ‘geriatric ghettos.’ Flophouse hotels and old apartment buildings have been jerry-built into unlicensed bedlams for the old.” He also stated: “The best estimate is that six million old people live in poverty: without adequate food, gouged by high-cost prescription drugs, ill-sheltered and unloved.”
A New York Post article by Harriet Van Horne put the figure of elderly folks living in poverty higher. She declared: “In fact, 30 per cent of the elderly live below the poverty line. That is at least eight million people.” In addition, there are millions of others who are barely above the poverty line. This columnist also said:
“The Eskimos were kinder. When their aged kinfolk became nonproductive, they were put out on an ice floe, where they obligingly froze to death overnight.
“By contrast, we’re a rotten lot. We put our old folks into nursing homes, where 27 per cent die in their first month of residence. Arriving sane, they descend rapidly into senility and confusion.
“Those who survive are often starved, abused, drugged, neglected and reduced to quivering bags of bones.”
Thus, Dr. Robert N. Butler, author of the book Why Survive?, stated: “In truth, it is easier to manage the problem of death than the problem of living as an old person” on a low pension in an expensive society. He noted that “some 30 per cent of the housing of older people had no inside flush toilets, some 40 per cent had no bath or shower with hot water, and some 54 per cent minimal heat in winter.”
Obviously, then, for a large number of old people, “social security” provides very little real security. Unless one has other income, or is cared for by one’s family, he or she will be in a desperate condition although living in a relatively rich country.
But must this always be? Is there any hope that this condition will end before long?