Minimum wage raises will increase income gap and poverty for seniors

Loaves and fishes (Forsloff photo) where low income seniors receive help with food.[/caption]

Carol Forsloff---- "The average gross monthly Social Security benefit in 2014, before Medicare deductions, for retirees of all ages and earnings levels, will be $1,294 for a single and $2,111 for a couple, the Social Security Administration estimates,"Forbes wrote October 30, 2013.  According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College about one-third of household retirees live on nothing other than Social Security.  Among those with low incomes, 75 percent live on Social Security alone.  The 2014 Social Security increase was 1.5%, making it a guarantee that seniors will fall further and further behind the income levels of all Americans, when the minimum wage is raised to just over $10/hour.

There has been a stringent plan to save on the costs of Social Security and Medicare, with percentage increases either not occurring or very low in the past several years.  This means as incomes of workers rise, Social Security increases, limited as they are, more seniors will live in poverty, as they face paying the same bills as other groups, and more considering the high cost of medical care.

Following the Chained CPI, which is the present plan of determining increases for Social Security retirees, is a guarantee, experts say, that seniors will fall further and further behind.

As the nation worries over disparities between rich and poor, the truth is hidden in the hue and cry about the terrible gaps that exist at the low and high income levels.  Yet there is no plan to protect those groups who are not in the workforce and who are no longer able to work because of age-related disabilities and other factors.  And to add insult to injury, seniors are generally given part-time hours and the minimum pay when they do work.  Often that insult is multiplied by asking seniors to just volunteer, often in the same kind of jobs they left when they retired.

While people celebrate the solution of the workforce in raising the minimum wage, the balance will still not be reached and large swaths of people will be left out at the bottom.  What is not being underlined is that by not taxing the rich, and raising the minimum wage, there continues to be a tendency not to solve the problem at its source, which is in asking the rich to pay their fair share of taxes, so that all boats can rise and be able to pay their bills.  It will guarantee more seniors will live in poverty, if the solution is just to raise the minimum wage of the working class.