USA Today Features Reports on Challenges Faced by
Senior Citizens from Ballooning Prices
In depth reports are accompanied with tools and
ideas to help seniors survive
Once a month, seniors line up at a food bank at St.
Mark's Lutheran Church in Chula Vista, Calif., to get a box of food. It
includes such items as cereal, spaghetti, tuna, canned fruit,
vegetables, juice and peanut butter. Photo by Robert Alan Benson for USA
TODAY
July
2, 2008 USA Today has begun a series of reports focusing on the
financial struggle faced by many of Americas senior citizens as they
fight to survive ballooning food, gasoline and health care prices on a
fixed income. The series on 21st century retirement also includes tips
and tools to help seniors make it.
Nearly all Americans have felt the sting of
inflation in recent months. But when you're retired and your sole means
of support is a fixed amount that arrives each month from Social
Security and, for the lucky ones, a pension the pain is especially
severe, writes Lynn O'Shaughnessy, in USA TODAY report on July 1.
When Lynda and Don Perdew retired, they sold
their home in Southern California and used the money to buy a 37-foot
recreational vehicle. Then they set out to see the country, according
to a report by Sandra Block on June 30.
Keep up with the latest news for senior citizens, baby
bommers
That was 10 years ago, and the Perdews are still
on the road. But now they're taking shorter trips and staying longer in
each place. Now parked at a campground near Mount Rushmore, they'd like
to visit Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah this summer. But with gas
prices topping $4 a gallon, they aren't sure it's affordable anymore.
"We're sitting with a calculator in one hand and a
map in the other, trying to figure out how far we're going to get when
we get 7 miles a gallon," Lynda Perdew, 61, told Block.
Like the Perdews, many older Americans had long
envisioned retirement as a period of adventure a time to indulge in
leisurely lifestyles, with frequent trips out of town to see relatives
and explore places they'd never seen. That was then. Now, with food and
health care costs surging and fuel prices soaring, many retirees have
been forced to downsize their dreams of travel, finds Block in this
report on the struggles of many retirees.
With medical care and other costs soaring, the
portion of their pre-retirement pay that Americans will need in
retirement to keep the same standard of living is rising, financial
planners say, writes Christine Dugas on her report that focuses on the
increasing costs of retirement.
