Wealth and Poverty among Seniors: Old Folks Aren’t So Bad Off

For years researchers and policy analysts have used government data to show that the over-65 part of the population isn’t doing well financially. The data drove government policy, among other things. This report says that data wasn’t too accurate. The data collection method resulted in significant assets and sources of income being undercounted. Older Americans are much better off than the traditional data indicate.

A new paper by U.S. Census Bureau researchers Adam Bee and Joshua Mitchell uses a Social Security Administration database of 2012 tax filings and other earnings data to check on those survey responses. Older Americans, it turns out, are underestimating their income—by a lot.

The median U.S. household 65 or older earned $44,400 in 2012, those data show, a figure 30 percent higher than the median given in the census’s Current Population Survey from that year. And whereas the original survey found that 9.1 percent of Americans 65 and older were living below the poverty line, the new study puts their poverty rate a full two percentage points lower, at 6.9 percent.