Every year, millions of working families don't have enough money to pay for adequate food, housing, health care and other basic necessities of life.
Poverty exists in every region, state, city and community in America.
It doesn't discriminate based on race, gender, religion, national origin or any other factor. For older Americans, the difficulties of poverty are amplified by soaring health care costs and the expected slow-down in employment that typically comes with aging. The official measure of poverty made by the federal government is based on a household's annual money income. By 1998, the older population living in poverty had declined to about 11 percent. While we hear much about how well older Americans are doing, the same percentage of older people and working people are poor.