Did you hear that seniors on a "fixed income" will be receiving an 8.7% increase in their Social Security benefits? It's called a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). I don't object to a COLA, but it does seem a bit disingenuous to identify the incomes that it adjusts as "fixed."
I'm a newly minted senior, having recently reached that golden age of qualifying for Medicare, and I'm thankful to finally have reasonably good health insurance that I can afford. I skated by for quite some time with cheap, temporary health insurance, hoping and praying that I wouldn't require a visit to a hospital.
As a recent retiree I know that the days of stable, long-term employment with a pension and good health insurance coverage are long gone. Today, many work in the gig economy, going from one part-time job or consultant project to another, usually with few, if any, benefits.
According to the U.S. Census, the 2021 child poverty rate (under age 18) was 16.9%. That is 4 percentage points over the national rate. Among those of us who are seniors (ages 65 and over) the rate was 10.3% — 2.5 percentage points lower than the national rate. Yet, it is still primarily seniors who get discounts in our society. Hard to find a young family discount.
As an example, for $80 I was able to purchase a lifetime "America the Beautiful" national park pass, which would otherwise sell for that amount annually. With it I'm able to access more than 2,000 national parks and federal recreation areas. It also provides a 50% discount on camping.
My wife and I have already far surpassed the cost of this pass through savings on camping adventures. While doing this we've seen lots of other seniors, often traveling in recreational vehicles whose cost easily exceeds $100,000. While it's nice to see these happy older campers, I also wish that more low-income families could afford to go camping, even in a tent or a pop-up camper.
When my fellow seniors seek sympathy, claiming they're on a "fixed income," I think about the millions of younger Americans who can only wish they could count on some sort of guaranteed income — and affordable health care coverage.
Daniel Johnson lives in Crystal.
