American-style food stamps on the way for Australian pensioners? A bit rich from a very rich Prime Minister?

Cross-posted with Advocacy

One-third of Australian pensioners live in poverty: 

OECD report

January 8, 2016 - 9:10AM

Rachel Browne

Social Affairs Reporter

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More than one-third of Australian pensioners are living below the poverty line, making the country among the worst performers in the world for the financial security of older people.

The findings of the OECD report, Pensions at a Glance 2015, compared Australia to 33 other countries.

Australia was ranked second lowest on social equity, with 36 per cent of pensioners living below the poverty line, which the report defined as half the relevant country's median household income.

One-third of Australian pensioners live in poverty, according to a report by the OECD. 

Photo: Greg Newington

Australian pensioners fared better than their counterparts in South Korea, where 50 per cent live below the poverty line but performed poorly against the OECD average of 12.6 per cent.

The report, released last month, found the Australian government contributes less to old-age benefits than other OECD countries. The Australian government spends 3.5 per cent of GDP on the pension, below the OECD average of 7.9 per cent.

The findings are backed up by the Global Age Watch Index 2015 report card which rates countries by how well their older populations are faring. It ranked Australia lowest in its region on income security, due to the high rate of old age poverty and pension coverage which is below the regional average.

 

Paul Versteege , senior research and advocacy adviser with the Combined Pensioner and Superannuants Association, said the base Australian pension rate was low compared to median household incomes.

"There are huge discrepancies among retirees in various countries," he said.

"In Australia there is quite a large group that has to subsist on the age pension as its only source of income. In spite of pension reform and recent increases to the pension, the base pension is still quite low for singles."

The annual payment for a single person is about $22,000 and $34,000 for a couple, with 2.25 million Australians claiming the pension.

Council on the Ageing chief executive Ian Yates said the report challenged perceptions that the entitlement was too high.

"Claims that the age pension is somehow too extravagant and unsustainable do not bear out," he said.

"We have always argued for progressive improvements to the pension but at the moment an increase to the pension is highly unlikely and more focus ought to go towards building superannuation contributions."

Chief executive of Vision Super Stephen Rowe said he was "staggered" by the findings of the OECD report, saying it painted a bleak picture for many older Australians.

"Are we generous enough with the pension? I don't think so."

He said that Australians retiring now have not received the full benefit of compulsory superannuation contributions, introduced in 1992, but were grappling with rising living costs.

"The basic cost of living in Australia is quite high, compared with  some other OECD countries," Mr Rowe said.

Chief executive of National Seniors Michael O'Neill said the pension had gone backwards in real terms and many older people had not accumulated enough superannuation to supplement the benefit.

"In terms of sustainability, the report confirms that Australia spends substantially less than the OECD average on pensions," he said.

"In fact, our pension spend has dropped and plateaued since 2000. Against other countries, our proportion of pensioners living below the poverty line is startling."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/onethird-of-australian-pensioners-live-in-poverty-oecd-report-20160106-gm0uno#ixzz3wbUL4jxn 
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook

Older adults, volunteering and health. Down, down, the blood pressure's down when you volunteer.

Are you an Elder yet? If you are in your senior years, I highly commend Ronni Bennett's blog, Time Goes By,  to you.  I was so taken with this post of Ronni's that I have to snitch it to ensure that Networkers get a look at it.

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Picture from here

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Volunteering Linked to Reduced Risk of Hypertension

”New research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that older adults who volunteer for at least 200 hours per year decrease their risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure, by 40 percent.

Hypertension is estimated to affect 65 million Americans. It leads to cardiovascular disease which is the number one killer in the United States. So this is fascinating news for elders who are physically able to contribute.

As reported at ScienceDaily, 1,164 adults age 51 to 91 from across the United States were interviewed in 2006 and 2010. All participants registered normal blood pressure levels in the first interview and each time, volunteering along with social and psychological factors were measured. (Emphasis is mine)

”...showed that those who reported at least 200 hours [per year] of volunteer work during the initial interview were 40 percent less likely to develop hypertension than those who did not volunteer when evaluated four years later.

“The specific type of volunteer activity was not a factor - only the amount of time spent volunteering led to increased protection from hypertension."

Isn't that the most terrific thing? Just helping others goes a long way to reducing the risk of high blood pressure. And the amount of time isn't much. There are approximately 250 business days per year which is equal to 2,000 hours. So only one-tenth of the time we spent employed, on average, is effective.

Certainly, regular TGB readers know how I bash on from time to time about how blogging – writing or reading – helps reduce isolation and loneliness at a time in life when we no longer have the camaraderie of the workplace and some other means of social interaction. That appears to also be true for volunteering.

The lead author of this research, Rodlescia S. Sneed, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology in [Carnegie Mellon's] Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Science suggests that this is what is at work in the reduced hypertension risk with volunteering:

"As people get older, social transitions like retirement, bereavement and the departure of children from the home often leave older adults with fewer natural opportunities for social interaction. Participating in volunteer activities may provide older adults with social connections that they might not have otherwise.”

Exercise is good for reducing blood pressure. So is maintaining a reasonable body weight, they tell us, along with eating a healthy diet and cutting back on sodium intake.

Now we know that something as fulfilling as helping out others can give a big boost to our health. It's something anyone can do - even if you cannot get out and about easily, there is plenty of need for people who can contribute via telephone and computer.

In reporting on this research WebMD warns to keep in mind that the study "found an association between time spent volunteering and blood pressure levels, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.”

Okay. But there is at least one other study that seems to agree. Earlier this year, EverydayHealth reported on similar results with volunteer adolescents:

”After ten weeks, researchers found that the students who volunteered had decreased cholesterol, BMI, and inflammation when compared to those who did not get the opportunity to volunteer.

"'The volunteers who reported the greatest increases in empathy, altruistic behaviour and mental health were the ones who also saw the greatest improvements in their cardiovascular health,' study author Hannah Schreier, PhD, said in a press release.”

This news – for young and old - seems to me to be the sort that if you'd ever given it serious thought, you might have deduced it for yourself. It feels intuitively right, don't you think, that doing things that make you feel good, especially while helping others, would be a health-giving activity?

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Growing old in America ... not for the faint-hearted

Why is it that the inner me doesn't match the outer me?  I'm only 18 on the inside but the outer me displays for all to see that I have added an extra half century to that.  I follow a wonderful blog for those in my demographic - Time Goes By.  It is American, so there is a bit of a difference.  But every Sunday (Monday our time), there is a music post done by an Australian living in Melbourne.  I highly commend it. Glenn A Baker, please take note.

To-day, I have lifted a post from Time Goes By ... just a reminder of how good things can be in the Land of Oz and how pathetic a once great nation such as the USA has become for ordinary folk. To be sure, there are some things Australian elders will recognise from their life experience - but we do have more substantial undergirding, in my view, than US citizens have.  So please, no whingeing after reading this ... just thankfulness that Oz has not become an altogether thoughtless, compassion-less country ... yet.

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If you are old today – let's say 55 and up – and not wealthy (that is, most of us), you live under constant threat of financial disaster. Here is Crabby Old Lady's list of what has happened to elders in the past four years since the 2008 crash:

1. IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement investments have been decimated; many have never recovered and never will


2. Home values have dropped by a third or more leaving many with underwater mortgages and in some cases, unfair foreclosures


3. Millions have been and continue to be laid off from their jobs


4. Age discrimination means it takes older workers longer to find the next job than any other age group


5. Many older workers who don't find that next job are forced into early retirement resulting in a lower Social Security Security benefit for life

[Crabby understands that people of all ages are living with brutal financial circumstances but this blog is concerned with elders.]

For many elders, the slightest uptick in food prices, for example, or even a minor emergency can mean choosing between eating and buying prescribed medications.

Those are the current conditions. Let's take a look at some of the threats.

• About half the politicians in Congress want to take away or dramatically cut Social Security, Medicare and food stamps among other programs for the poor, disabled and aged. 
• Just as many of them, along with a large number of state governors, want to kill Medicaid which affects elder dual eligibles.
• Many of those same elected officials want to raise the retirement age – that is, the age at which full Social Security benefits are allowed – to 70.

Generally, Crabby Old Lady has no objection to people working longer than 66 or 67 but only if they are physically capable so she believes that any legislation raising the retirement age must include accommodation for those whose bodies cannot do it any longer.

Please recall, too, as we have said here many times, that people's bodies age at dramatically different rates so it is not just those who have done heavy physical labor who may not be able to continue working.

With all that in mind, however, there is the elephant in the room, the unspoken Catch-22:  they already refuse to allow us work even until we reach the current retirement age.

It's called age discrimination in the workplace. It has always existed but it has become grimly more visible during our four-year recession than in the past.

The average length of unemployment for older workers is at an all-time high — well over a year. On average, it takes someone age 55 or older three months longer to find a job than a younger person.

“These long-term unemployed are disproportionately composed of older workers — who, compared to younger workers, are less likely to lose their jobs, but more likely to have trouble finding re-employment if they are laid off,” reports The New York Times

“Given how far behind these workers have already fallen, it may turn out that many of these Americans will never work again.”

Exactly. Just like me as I've written about here in the past. But I was 63 when I was laid off from my last job. Even though with careful budgeting and belt-tightening I was able to squeak by until I was old enough for full benefits at age 65 and 10 months, I still wound up with a reduced Social Security benefit for not having any income during the last two-and-a-half years until my eligibility.

It's much worse if you are laid off, for example, in your late fifties or early sixties and must scrimp by until age 62 and then take reduced early Social Security benefit. And don't forget that when you do that, you're stuck at the lower figure for the rest of your life. But many have no choice if they enjoy eating.

Speaking of eating, 46.2 million people (nearly one in seven Americans) receive food stamp (SNAP program) aid. According to the National Council on Aging (NCOA), three million of them are elders.

[By the way, many more elders than the three million are eligible but do not know it. If you believe you or someone you know might be among them, you can find eligibility rules for people age 60 and older here.]

Last week, the House passed a farm bill that cuts $16 billion from the SNAP program while retaining subsidies for corporate farmers. If the bill passes in the Senate, between two and three million people will be thrown off SNAP and 21 million children will no longer qualify for free school lunches.

So one way or another, the people who already stole elders' savings, homes and livelihoods leaving millions in drastically reduced financial circumstances for their old age now seek to further impoverish them.

This is how it is to be old in America today. 

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Australia's Age Pension

Australian Medicare Services (universal medical insurance, etc)

Pharmaceutical benefits  (unlike Americans we don' have to cross borders to get affordable medicine)

Chronic Disease Dental Scheme (this is coming to an end - will have to see how what comes next works)

Assistance with care and housing for the aged

Aged Care Australia

We're getting older - and the elderly need help

Australian population by age and sex

Australian Government's Seniors Portal

Related articles

• Own your own home? You're dreaming

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• Australian financial experts warn of 'depreciation time bomb' of negative equity

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The Sustainable Renter 2011 No. 2 #poverty #renters #resourcefulness

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Picture from here

I think this is a wonderful map - and, for those who haven't stopped to think, please note that Australia is not included in Pooristan but is immediately adjacent to some of its inhabitants.

What has impelled me to post about poverty is to-day's article by the inimitable Ross Gittins.  And in case Networkers would like a point of comparison, I have come across this article about life in Poland. I found slivers of resemblance comparing life in Poland and life in Australia.

I think Australia, in the last couple of decades, has become a nation of whingers and whiners.  The well-heeled and -clothed upper middle class complain when there is a cut off of government assistance or advantage at an income of $150K.  There are complaints about the number of refugees coming in an unauthorised manner to that locale of ill fame: Australia's Migration Exclusion Zone.  However, the whingers and whiners don't take into account the very tiny percentage of people who arrive in Australia this way - and how the majority of migrants enter this country.  As well, I haven't noticed any whinging and whining about Australian educational providers, shonky and legitimate (i.e. universities) who bend over backwards to provide a backdoor entry to many, many would-be migrants.   

Australia has become a highly individualistic nation and, certainly in urbanised areas, the idea of community and how it functions is on the decline. Even those seeking to reclaim the concept have difficulties - because so many of us have that highly individualistic trait firmly embedded us.  Many of those who wish to jump on the community bandwagon have difficulty suppressing individualist ambition to the common, greater or less technological good.

Australian civil society - as with many western countries across the planet - has become highly segmented and stratified at a more complex level than ever before.  While Australians might be unhappy with their politicians, part of the reason why we are suffering the complexities of a hung Parliament at the Federal level is the complex and segmented nature of Australian civil society.  Our Parliament is a reflection of our society, not just our political proclivities.

Which brings me back to Gittins and what I see of myself in this article.  Gittins says, among other things:

The groups with the highest risk of facing ''deep exclusion'' are (in declining order) unemployed people, public renters, lone parents, indigenous Australians and private renters.

I am represented in some of the above categories.  I am not employed.  I am a recipient of the full aged pension.  I live alone.  I have been widowed for the past 21+years.  I am a private renter.  If all you see is dollars, a fancy house/apartment, late model car, then I fail miserably.  I do live in poverty - a poverty greater than those living on $149,000 per annum.  

But am I poor?

I cannot honestly say I am poor.  I consider I am in my current situation for three reasons: widowhood (that pall of grief and sadness still hangs over my life after more than two decades); chronic illness as I have aged - including some serious stuff - which prevented stable employment; some poor financial decisions.

I am well-educated with a range of skills, particularly in public and corporate administration.  I have a generalist university degree gained as a mature age student and undertaken externally while living in remote north-west Queensland.  This makes me sufficiently opinionated to blog and twitter across a wide range of topics.  I have never been sure whether the degree helped me to get a better paying job since none of the jobs necessitated a degree and doing it externally, in relative isolation, didn't give me the sort of contacts that are developed in the standard passage through university. 

I am a member of two faith communities so I have a wide range of people coming into my life.  Because I have only lived in Melbourne for six years, I have only a few close, intimate friendships here (I do try to maintain contacts in other places). I am a member of a number of environment and social justice organisations which have kept me involved, stimulated, social and feeling useful - all in good causes.  This year though, I have found that I need to withdraw from almost all these activities because my health has not been good. I feel that I can't pop off to meetings in the city and inner suburbs as I did just a short while ago. As well, even concession memberships place a strain on my very limited budget.  Is isolation creeping into my life?  Only time will tell - but I am savvy enough to know that social isolation is a peril and I must do my part to hold it at bay.

Above all, I am resourceful and I am solution-oriented.  I am planning for a garage sale in a month or two as we come closer to spring with finer and sunnier Saturdays.  Hopefully this will allow me to divest some superfluous possessions and sell some of my gleanings and herbs.  A little extra money can go a long, long way.  I rely on the public health system and I am most grateful for the dental package brought in by Tony Abbott when he was Minister for Health.  This came none too soon for me.  I am grateful that the ALP, in spite of its intentions, has not been able to overturn this.  This package, I believe, has set my dental health on an even keel which can be maintained in the years ahead.  

I try to live frugally - but I am certain it is not yet frugal enough.  I watch my utility spending on electricity, gas and water and I am concerned at the increasing corporatisation of these public necessities and the rising prices that have come in its wake. I run my refrigerator only in off-peak times.  In fact, I now regard it as one big Esky far from those state of the art consumer desirables seen on television. I try to avoid having those blinking lights of electronic equipment when the equipment is not in use.  I have as my water-use yardstick the 60 litres a day of the underdeveloped world.  However, some western practices like washing machines and showers interfere with reaching this target but I try to stay very close to it.  A Smart Meter has recently been installed but - in spite of reading instructions - I can't figure out how to read it.  Can anyone help?  I also wonder if it would be better for me to only run the hot water system occasionally?  Again, I would welcome some advice and someone showing me where to turn it off if I decide to do so.

I am a vegetarian who relies on good old peasant recipes from Asia and Europe to bring welcome variety to my diet.  The vegetarian diet has so much to commend it.  I particularly welcome the relatively low cost by comparison with an animal protein diet and the less mess factor - cooking animal flesh can be a messy, greasy business. 

I have found that some of my shopping ethics have had to take a back seat.  For over forty years, I have always been one to buy Australian even when it costs a little more.  I am no longer able to do that.  I have to buy the cheapest I can while still enabling me to have the quality I can live with.  I am sad about this. Price also means that I can only take organic options occasionally.  But I am still paying more for free range eggs.  I will know I am in a bad place when I have to sacrifice that option.

As far as clothing goes, I was on the receiving end of quite a bit a couple of years ago.  This supply has stood me in good stead and I have bought very little clothing in that time.  I feel the time drawing nearer when I have to make some decisions about clothes.  In September, I will be attending a classy Gold Coast wedding.  I have a stash of fabric and hope I can manufacture something glamourous.  Then I will have to figure out how to get there.  I feel I should start thinking about the wedding present.  That will be an interesting exercise.

I should mention transport.  I have a twelve year old car.  When it ceases to be either affordable or maintainable, I will be car-less. I am a public transport person with a preference for living within walking distance of a railway station. I also live just a block away from a Coles supermarket and a couple of blocks from a major shopping complex.  

The upshot of all this? 

I am not poor - but I do live in a form of frugal poverty.