My mom is in this category. She can't afford anything. She's lucky the house is paid for, but she's a retired nurse, on a fixed income. She struggles to pay her bills.

My call to her on Sunday will probably be filled with tears.

It also makes women dependent on longterm marriage, no? I know that my grandma was fine as she aged because she relied on my grandpa's SS checks, and when he died, it definitely frightened her. I can't imagine how she would've survived on her own in her own household if he had died much earlier, or if they hadn't been together in later years.

Jessica-- Well done for bringing this to our attention. So important.

Mommy is getting a donation to Heifer Project again this year, which she loves for just this reason: a woman should be able to have some economic/basic security. She's also getting a chocolatey dessert, lovingly prepared by her best and brightest daughter :-D.

More good news for women! We really have it too easy in this coutnry.

I plan on being an elderly "black widow" type. I'm gonna charm the Depends off all of the terminally-ill Oldie Olsens in the retirement home and run off with their life insurance money. Hahahahahaaaa!!

I worry about this for my daughter. I'm planning on dieing with my boots on. Also, almost nobody on this board will ever see any SS money.

The world shits on women. Happy Friday!

@rosasparks: It's scary to think that there is no reprieve from this struggle to pay the bills. I get by now with little savings and I worry a lot about the future...I mean, a lot of people live this way all their lives and I hate that now I think that the only way out is getting help by marrying someone. That dependence is frightening.

This is where Ramona from Real Housewives had it right. Do it for yourselves sistas!

@arodriguez.romero: and there's the point. it's called "saving money," people. anyone who expects SS to support retirement, man or woman, deserves what they get.

My folks are still both alive and married to each other, and fortunately, if my dad were to go first, my mom will still have his pension for the rest of her life. Not a common situation but comforting. Still, they're not rich people, and I tend to give them a check for holidays and birthdays. Hey, I owe them a ton of money. It's the least I can do.

But this is definitely something I worry about. Never been married. Am not truly concerned to ever be married, so I gotta save now if I want to be retired on the beach by 55 - and be able support myself for the 30 years+ I suspect I'll live after that.

@pferde_schwanz: I second that emotion.

@pferde_schwanz: i have to add that i'm not referring to people in poverty, just irresponsible non-savers such as myself.

@meaghan2k: Good morning, sunshine.

@arodriguez.romero: Yeah. And this, like many problems, is going to be like a cycle. My relatives who've been in the workforce longer than my grandma's and great-aunts still won't have much to put towards retirement because they're pitching in to take care of their parents (not that anyone's complaining- Lord knows we owe them!)- so many of them will probably have to rely on us to take care of them...

The system is going to need a major overhaul and we'll probably all have to think of other ways to deal with it, too.

Maybe all of this anxiety about savign will be good for us, so that when we're old we'll hoard all of our 401ks and make a candyland palace with a swimming pool of gold coins while reckless viagra-addled dudes queue outside the front gates for a ladel full of gruel. Mwa ha ha ha ha.

This is one of the reasons why I might have kids, even though I am still undecided and I am not crazy about kids (yet.) I will likely outlive my spouse (if I ever get one). I will probably never see a dime of Social Security (despite my plans to be in the workforce until I croak.) I'm scared of having no one to help me when I'm old.

@pferde_schwanz: I definitely agree, who knows where Social Security will be in fifty years (in the toilet, probably). Most people don't look towards the future, they want to spend their paychecks NOW on shit they don't need...

@biscuitdoughjones: I know that this plan wasn't perfected before, but I think that we can really work this "hitting old homeless men with cars after signing them up for life insurance" bit. It's a tad unsavory. We'd have to get crazy old lady makeovers though - to fit the part.

This may be a bit tangential, but this article reminds me of a snippet from a poem by Suheir Hammad, "First Writing Since," which she wrote about 9/11 and the possibility of war in Afghanistan:

"but i know for sure who will pay.

in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women will
have to bury children, and support themselves through grief."

And she's right---so many women are not presented with the opportunity in their lives to effectively develop their own livelihood, their own method of support. War, in many ways, ends up disproportionately effecting them.

@robot ninja spy:I am not sure about another solution as a society, I haven't thought about it.

Personally my solution is like yours. The burden gets shifted down the generations. We are trying this with SS but we seem to have some problems keeping away from that money as a society.

@pferde_schwanz: Thanks! I had a "friend" who was really eager to fault the downtrodden for their downtrodden-ness and I had a bad flashback when I read that. :)

But yeah, I've been trying to change my spending habits, too, with that in mind and learning to live decent on less. Better to learn now than to wait until we don't have a choice.

@boring diatribes: My grandfather died when my mom was 17 (only child) and around that time had started working. She's been able to live rather comfortably now--she retired in the late eighties, and her pension along with some investments bequeathed to her from her aunt have made things a little easier. But you can totally see how it's affected my mom--despite the fact that my parents are for the most part debt-free (they are the definition of frugal--not tight, but frugal), she's constantly working multiple jobs because she's paranoid about retirement.

@arodriguez.romero: i thinkk that is what cars me, that ss is so fucked now that unless i am very prudent I wont have shit because by the time i reach retirement ss will be defunct. I started my ira a few years ago but most likely will have to use it for my kids education...

@boring diatribes: Yeah I work a full time job and I have 30 bucks in my savings and 15 in my checking, and that's not a lie. Student loans are a bitch. And I never plan on owning a house, because I had to the make the choice between going to grad school or taking out a loan to get a place.

I'd much rather have an education. I'll pay rent for the rest of my life, I don't mind that much.

@lululechou: "ladel full of gruel" is the sexiest phrase I've heard in a while. That should be a band name. They can tour with that Pudddle of Mudddddd.

@tscheese: Problem with that is, having kids doesn't mean you can count on 'em. Good, bad, or indifferent, having kids doesn't guarantee security any more than marriage does.

@Shawn-Shawn: I think that's a good tangent.

@tscheese: Well, now I'm depressed. Is it noon yet? This thread makes me need a drink, which will clearly be paid for out of my savings account. Which is a shoebox beneath my bed.

@rosasparks: @boring diatribes: That dependence is frightening. My mother's house isn't paid for. She's still working to pay for it and her other bills. She's also past retirement age. My father died, and sadly enough, it was a good thing in reducing her medical bills and payments. Her slave-wage retail income leaves her with no health insurance and barely enough to get by. I wish I could send her more than I do.

Didn't we just yesterday see a study alleging the economic bust has devastated men more than women?

There is research data out there that can be interpreted any which way.

@WaltzingMatilda: You'll need crazy old lady makeovers and a Buick (or other old lady car) to use when running them over.

@pferde_schwanz: Not everyone has money that they can put away for retirement. Especially since this article is discussing women who are elderly now--many were raising families while their husbands worked. I doubt they were putting away a special savings for themselves for when they lived past 80. When my mom died, as a single mom she had no savings to her name, and my brother and I were entitled to SSI instead. But if she had lived, she wouldn't have been able to save anything until we were both out of the house, and even then it would've been a struggle. A lot of people get by and that's it. I realize you said you're not referring to people who are in poverty, but there are a lot of people who aren't impoverished who can barely keep their heads above water, especially today.

@biscuitdoughjones:I've already told Mr. La Comtesse that when I hit 80 or so I'm going to run around in a cheetah print bathrobe and big rhinestone necklaces with a 20 y.o. boy on a leash. I think he supports my decision.

@tscheese: Save up for a live in nurse. In the long run, it will cost you less than kids and a nurse won't resent you for not dying.

@lurkystars: Yeah, I actually came running back into this thread to add on to my statement. I'm not COUNTING on my invisible future kids being there to help me. One day I think I might like to have a family, but that incurs its own staggering costs as well, y'know?

I am saving aggressively into a 401k and I'm only in my mid-twenties. I'm trying to sock away savings to one day own a house and I'm still paying off student loan debt.

The dollar amount involved to have a car and a house and be debt-free and have a 401k and a savings account? Staggering. It's more money than I can even imagine right now, and it's not going to get any better. The whole system just seems stacked against everyone.

Been fighting the system trying to get Food Stamps for my "other" Mom(80yrs old), she gets $725.00 per month. Lives in NYC and they say her income is too high for Food Stamps. So she only gets $10.00 worth of stamps...last month by mid month she was eating peanut butter. This country is terrible in how it treats seniors, and should be ashamed.

@robot ninja spy:

the flip side of this valid observation are "children" who've finished college, and then come back home to drop anchor until they find their dream job. while not paying rent, and not being forced to pay rent, by their parents.

or the daughter who divorces and comes back home to live. or the son in the same situation. a lot of parents have an instinctive desire to "take care" of these now-adult kids and won't accept rent or even grocery money. more disgusting are the adult children who take advantage of this situation indefinitely.

My parents are in their 60's and are going through a divorce. It seems more and more common for long-term marriages to break up after the kids are largely out of the nest and retirement is coming up soon. Although I don't doubt that my parents will each have a financially stable retirement, a huge issue in their separation has been finances--finances that are stable, if not really excellent given their professions, and investments and savings they grew together.
My dad sees this pre-retirement and retirement time to enjoy the fruits of his labor by going through a (second? thrid?) life crisis, whereas my mom is concerned for their ability to live on a fixed income, even a decent one at that, into old age.
I don't know if it's tied into lifespan, or my dad's logic that even after retirement, he could always teach a few classes here or there or pick up work, but it's at the heart of the issue of the separation (well, that, and his infidelity starting in his 50's, ew). He has no regard for potential illness or declining health.

@myrtlebeachbum: Eh. Life is pain.

@LaComtesse: Actually, that's a good idea. I'd rather have no past experience in changing the diapers of the folks who will one day change MY diapers. That's a weeeeird switcheroo.

Maybe Japanese technology will give us live-in robot maids by then.

@boring diatribes: Thanks.

Let's not blame the feminization of poverty on "failure to save." It's not that simple, or else the phrase "feminization of poverty" wouldn't even exist.

@meaghan2k: Exactly! My loans kick my ass every month and I panic about my savings every day, but what can you do? What choice is there? I've basically admitted to myself that I won't be able to truly save until my 12 years of payback is up. The HR guy at my work totally judged me when I refused 401K because I simply couldn't afford it at the moment. Some people truly don't know how to save but others really are just making it the best they can.

The shift from pensions to 401(k)s also worries me. Not only do I have little faith in the stock market, but with the combination of switching jobs and grad school, I have a little bit in two different plans and even though I put in the max, it still doesn't seem like it will ever be enough to support me 25 years post retirement, if I am lucky to live that long. Combine that with the likely future of reduced income for a few years because of kids. And my husband is likely to be a self-employed forester with no employer contributions to a retirement plan.

@msAnthrope: Yeah I never understood the "no rent" part of that equation.

If an older woman (or man) is lucky enough to live in a house that is fully paid for, there are things things called reverse mortgages that allow people to take money out of their homes (different from a home equity loan or something). It can be a good option for some who are worried about retirement savings & fixed incomes. I've heard several stories of people my family knows that this has been a good option. The horrible thing about one of the older woman we know is that her kids got pissed that they weren't going to be left a house fully paid for when their mom passed on. (Yet, they weren't willing to help their mother pay her monthly bills in the meantime). Assholes.