Posted on 05/20/2014 9:34:42 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
Gender inequality doesn't end at the workplace. For many women, the gender gap haunts them well into their retirement years, when far more women find themselves living in poverty.
In fact, women are almost twice as likely as men to live below the poverty line during retirement, with single and minority women struggling the most (see chart).
On average, women 65 years and older rely on a median income of around $16,000 a year -- roughly $11,000 less than men of the same age, according to a Congressional analysis of Census data. And many elderly women rely exclusively on Social Security benefits.
The problem: Women earn -- and save -- less over their lifetimes than men, leaving them with a smaller nest egg. And because they tend to live longer, that savings has to last longer, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I hear you two. There’s an unfortunate, persistent anti-female streak that runs through FR.
Women and minority women hardest hit.
You’ve got a good husband.
That’s gonna suck for all those boomer women who dumped their hubby’s so they could go “find” themselves.
???
Good for you
Child care costs are unbelievably high. My 64 years of experience and observation has shown to me that women generally make less money and have higher expenses over their working years. Most women don’t have careers, they have jobs.
Can’t imagine why you’re single at your age!
That’s a hefty assumption. I don’t think it’s the norm though.
Ya think??
I am almost 82, male, and live with my wife in a nice retirement home. I was lucky and was able worked full time till I was 76. Our children have done well, don’t need our help, and hopefully we will not need theirs.
There are about 220 living units here, only 40 men, 180 women.
Don’t know if that is statistically representative but very few, if any, of these women have not been well provided for. My wife, who worked out side the home for a short time before the children came, and I tried to planned for our old age. Social Security was never meant to be the only source of old age income.
I understand completely...been there...still doing that.
Youngest is 17 and will be a HS senior next year...have a 20 yr old in college and three graduated out of college, grown up professionals, paying their taxes and contributing to society. I quite my good paying, county govt “office job” 30 years ago to stay home w/baby number one. And started my cobbled together “make ends meet” nighttime jobs of waitressing; inventory servicing and more years of retail than I care to admit to. I made (and still make) very little, but that “little” keeps us afloat. Like you, I know what the future holds.
I wouldn’t change any of my decisions career wise. I have seen, first hand, the trouble the “two big income” families have (raised by succession of babysitter types) so I know I did the right thing being home and being a professional “volunteer” (home room mom, Scout leader, Sunday school teacher) it shows in the end product.
I love the “wit” though that a “lifetime of shopping” has left “ us” in this position. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish FR from the DUmp.
Because they live longer?
There was 10 houses on the block I grew up on, back in those days all the moms were stay at home mom’s. As the fathers started dying off I watched more and more of them fall into poverty. The kid’s would do what they could but there just wasn’t enough money. We were lucky in having the ranch which has supported us well but many were not.
EXCELLENT post! I think (if memory serves me) we have discussed this on threads in the past.
HOW Social Security payout amounts are determined will NEVER be changed or addressed. Not like important issues like amnesty for illegals or free birth control that politicians can get votes off of.
Women initiate divorce between 2/3rds to 90 percent of the time.
It may be an old fashioned idea, but I believe the children should help out.
My ex wife never saw a dollar she couldn’t spend fast enough.
She never grasped the concept of a financial plan I had instituted with a a well known investment house.
When I was overseas she enjoyed a lifestyle that only a dual salary could provide. She could never seem to account for her own money. Spend spend spend. Beach condo weekends, travel, etc. when I was away.
I had the good sense to keep our finances separate - we shared the household expenses except when I had to pay for the new roof, redo the electrical, window replacement, car payments - you get the idea.
Now she is complaining that her SS isn’t enough and still whines about money the one or two times a year when she get the nerve to call and bemoans her station in life.
Meanwhile, I might just gently point out that making bitchy remarks about shopping habits is not a helpful contribution to the discussion.
At age 66, I’ll be getting $1200-1300/mo from SS while my husband will get $2400.
I’m observant, eh?
I think FR is somehow a magnet for every guy who resents that he couldn’t get the girls he wanted to go out with him, stretched to marry the most eye candy he could possibly catch, and in divorce has become the classic Asian woman’s nightmare of a white American man interested in her for all the wrong Asian female stereotypes.
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