Summary
Latino elders in California have lower rates of home ownership overall, and fewer have paid off mortgages than average among low-income seniors. Home ownership is typically the largest investment that older adults have, and paid off mortgages guarantee a lifetime of lower and fixed housing cost compared to renting. As a result of low home ownership rates, Latino elders are the most impacted by reductions in payments by Social Security, supplemental security income and in-kind benefits. Their plight is overlooked by many government programs and analysts because of the outdated and inaccurate federal poverty line, the official measure of poverty that is uniform across the entire country and that is used as an eligibility criteria for many public assistance programs.
In this study, the authors propose the Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index) as a more accurate measure of need. The Elder Index looks at the true cost of living in every California county using data from the American Community Survey and other public data sources. The results show that the amount needed for basic economic security in California is higher than the federal poverty level in all counties, and averages about twice the federal level. Particularly hard hit are Latino elders, who "are already struggling to make ends meet under current policies, let alone after cutbacks," write the authors.
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