Fed Chair Powell warned of ‘pain’ to come. Seniors on fixed incomes are already feeling it

CNN
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America’s seniors are facing a lot of hard choices. After the Federal Reserve’s latest rate hike, the combination of climbing prices on everything from food to gas to utilities and ever-higher borrowing costs is making the finances of Americans on fixed incomes increasingly precarious.

“Overall, they have an increase in daily living expenses because of the economy right now,” said Ella Thomas, executive director at the Thea Bowman Center, a Cleveland community center that provides food assistance and other services. “It’s definitely a problem.”

Thomas said many seniors the center serves who own their own homes are at risk of falling behind on property taxes and often don’t have enough money to perform crucial repairs and upkeep. “Being able to keep those homes up is a struggle for most of them,” she said.

This is how Catherine Powell, a lifelong Clevelander, said she came to find herself back in the workforce at the age of 62, taking a part-time job at the center helping other seniors apply for benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

“When you’re younger, you can afford to get things fixed,” Powell told CNN Business. “When you’re younger, you can go out and get two or three jobs, you can hustle… But when you’re a senior, it’s tough to pivot.”

Powell left a federal government job 17 years ago to be a full-time caregiver for ailing family members. “I took an early retirement because the people in my family started to get old… I didn’t want to put anybody into a nursing home,” she said. “Unfortunately, I didn’t make plans for the long haul.”

The financial reality is that people can’t afford to retire on just a monthly Social Security check, said Vivian Nava-Schellinger, director of partnerships and network activation at the National Council on Aging. “Social Security comes up short by at least $1,000 [a month] in many locations. That’s a lot of money for an older adult,” she pointed out.

But many older Americans, especially lower-income, people of color and women — who are more likely to work less or not at all in order to take on unpaid caregiving roles — have no other dependable sources of income in their later years.

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