Health care and public transportation use by poor and frail elderly people.
Social Work › Vol. 40 Nbr. 3, May 1995
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Health care and public transportation use by poor and frail elderly people.
Poor and frail elderly people in many communities are among those most adversely affected in periods of extended economic decline or rapidly rising inflation. During recessions older people, people of color, and people with special needs, particularly those functioning at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, are disproportionately affected by cutbacks in services (Dunkle, 1984; Kluegel, 1987; Phillips, 1990).
For elderly people, this picture is further complicated by a pervasive belief that they are basically financially secure and exempt from economic hardships (Phillips, 1990), a position somewhat reinforced by dramatic declines in their levels of poverty from 35.2 percent in 1959 to 12.4 percent in 1986 (O'Grady-LeShane, 1990, p. 422). Furthermore, well-educated, married elderly people have made significant economic gains in excess of national trends over the past 20 years. Although tax and income advantages have served to preserve the financial security, property, pensions, annuities, and other holdings of some elderly people, many of those at lower socioeconomic levels continue to live below the safety net (Phillips, 1990). Based on conservative U.S. Census Bureau estimates, as many as 4 million elderly people may live below the poverty level by the year 2000. Men are twice as likely as women to have earned income in addition to social security benefits (Zopf, 1989), whereas elderly women are more likely to report social security benefits as the sole source of their monthly income...See the full content of this document
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