Beth Roper had already sold her husband Doug’s boat and his pickup truck. Her daughter sends $500 a month or more. But it was nowhere near enough to pay the $5,950-a-month bill at Doug’s assisted-living facility. So last year, Roper, 65, abandoned her own plans to retire.
To the public school librarian from Poquoson, Va., it feels like a betrayal of a social contract. Doug Roper, a longtime high school history teacher and wrestling coach, has a pension and Social Security. The Ropers own a home; they have savings. Yet the expense of Doug’s residential Alzheimer’s care poses a grave threat to their middle-class nest egg. At nearly $72,000, a year in assisted living for Doug, 67, costs more than her $64,000 annual salary.
“It’s devastating,” […]
You are absolutely right, Stephan. It is so difficult to survive on Social Security alone if you are single. I am a widower, so now I have to depend upon a very small income which would have been OK back the sixties, but very inadequate in this time of high prices, which are about ten times what they were back then.
P.S.: Even trying to get a reverse mortgage, I found out you must be rich and have a home that is worth at least $130,000, and nothing is available for those of us whose homes are only worth $50,000. In other words, we poor disabled Senior Citizens have no recourse to get a reverse mortgage who need it more than the rich do.