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Poverty among Americans aged 65 and older has risen for the fifth consecutive year, jumping 45% since 2019 to the highest rate of any age group. Women over 50 are particularly impacted due to lifetime earnings gaps, with nearly 17% of women over 65 living in poverty. Experts warn that health crises, market downturns, and lack of retirement savings are compounding these risks.
But the tale is the opposite for seniors. Poverty among Americans age 65 and older rose for the fifth consecutive year and has jumped roughly 45% since 2019 — the highest rate of any age group, an"No other age group has seen that same pattern, and that should really stop us in our tracks.
It's alarming," AARP Foundation president Claire Casey told Yahoo Finance. For a single renter, the poverty line starts at just over $19,000 a year. Last year, poverty rates were higher for women over 50 than for men, and the poverty level for women 65 and over is close to 17%, which is"really astonishing and something we should all be paying attention to," Casey said. The problem starts early in their working lives.
"Women often reach retirement after a lifetime of lower earnings and less opportunity to save," said Dan Doonan, executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security. "Poverty in later life can be the result of these risks piling up — not bad decisions. "More than 7 million people in their 50s and early 60s are already living in poverty, Casey said.
Sources: 2026 Census Bureau Report: Poverty in the United States 2025 and AARP Foundation analysis of 2026 CPS ASEC public-use data.
"Many of us think of our 50s as a person's peak earning years, when they're at the height of their professions," she said. "But when you break down the census figures and look at the cohort just before the traditional retirement age, those 50 to 64, the numbers tell a different story.
""A market downturn, a health problem, or the cost of caring for someone else can drain the resources they have, and because women tend to live longer, they may have to stretch what remains over many years, often on their own," he said. Only one in four low-income older adults has access to a workplace retirement savings plan, and few earn enough to save, according to AARP Foundation data.
Nearly half of Americans report having less than $100,000 saved for retirement, including nearly 2 in 10 with no retirement savings, according to The barriers to saving: healthcare costs, inflation, long-term care, wages failing to keep pace with expenses, and debt. Social Security AdministrationThe census data lags what's happening right now, but elevated inflation and soaring gas prices haven't helped struggling seniors stay afloat.
One-third of low-income older adults could not cover an emergency expense of $100 from savings, up from 28% in the spring, while more than half could not cover $500, according to AARPAnd they're hustling as fast as they can to make ends meet. Nearly two-thirds of employed older adults with low income report at least one additional source of paid work beyond their main job.
"It is no surprise that the elder poverty rate is rising," said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at the New School in New York City. "More and more elders don't have traditional pensions, and their 401 balances are nonexistent or too small to matter. Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including"
Senior Poverty Elderly Women Retirement Savings Economic Inequality AARP
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