WTTW Journal; When She Grows Old

<v Speaker>[music] I should have sat down and been a- an economic professor and figured all <v Speaker>that out years ago when I was young. <v Speaker>But I don't think many women do. I mean, you just live from paycheck to paycheck. <v Lindsay Wagner>Within Illinois, three quarters of the elderly poor are women. <v Speaker 2>Most of the people who come to us are elderly people on Social <v Speaker 2>Security. Many of them can hardly make it from one check <v Speaker 2>to another. <v Speaker 3>If they're not poor enough, they can't qualify for Medicaid. <v Speaker 3>Those kind of people are in a particularly vulnerable situation. <v Speaker 4>Okay, I'll make it some time, but ain't nothing <v Speaker 4>we can do about it seem like because it's in the government's hand. <v Lindsay Wagner>Tonight on WTTW Journal, we examine the harsh realities a woman <v Lindsay Wagner>may face when she gets old. <v Lindsay Wagner>Hello, I'm Lindsay Wagner. <v Lindsay Wagner>The women you're about to meet were once young and vibrant and ageless. <v Lindsay Wagner>Now, in their later years, they're facing hardships that were unimaginable in their

<v Lindsay Wagner>youth. Their stories challenge us to take a hard look at an issue that <v Lindsay Wagner>most of us, particularly women, would rather avoid. <v Lindsay Wagner>In many ways, aging is a woman's issue. <v Lindsay Wagner>Women are more likely to live longer, live alone and live in poverty. <v Lindsay Wagner>In the state of Illinois, 15 percent of all elderly women live below the <v Lindsay Wagner>poverty line. And as women get older, their risk of poverty increases. <v Lindsay Wagner>Today's older women had very few opportunities to gain financial independence. <v Lindsay Wagner>They were discouraged from working outside the home, and when they did, they earned <v Lindsay Wagner>less and they received fewer benefits, if any. <v Lindsay Wagner>Not many women could have anticipated that living a traditional life would <v Lindsay Wagner>have a profound and potentially devastating effect on their older years. <v Lindsay Wagner>Women who are elderly today faced the beginning of their adult lives in the postwar years <v Lindsay Wagner>when [jazzy music begins] a victorious nation swelled with optimism in the promise of

<v Lindsay Wagner>enduring prosperity. Rosie the Riveter was no longer needed, and women were asked <v Lindsay Wagner>to lay down their tool belts and their briefcases to return to more conventional roles. <v Lindsay Wagner>Once again, it was expected that a woman would marry, raise a family and put her trust <v Lindsay Wagner>in the male breadwinner. <v Speaker>See, the guys were all coming home from the service, you know. And <v Speaker>every weekend they'd all meet at the wishing post to hang out, <v Speaker>and they'd get a little too much to drink and take somebody up to Iowa <v Speaker>City, Iowa, and as fast as you go to the preacher, and the license, <v Speaker>and the hospital there does the blood testing. <v Speaker>As fast as you can do all that you're married, you know. <v Lindsay Wagner>Most women of Norma's generation married young and were encouraged to leave their careers <v Lindsay Wagner>behind. Norma was no different. <v Lindsay Wagner>She eloped to Iowa City and upon her return was expelled from nurses training. <v Lindsay Wagner>Married women were not allowed. <v Norma>Well, I was married twice. I was married in '48 and divorced, <v Norma>no children, and I waited till '53

<v Norma>to get married again. <v Norma>I married a widower with 2 children, 2 boys. <v Norma>That's the one that's skipped out [laughs]. <v Norma>He didn't want to play house no more. <v Norma>Norma was left to support herself and her son. <v Norma>Without nurses training, she worked as a nurse's aide and later as an in-home health <v Norma>worker, low paying service jobs, principally held by women. <v Janet Otwell>I think people are just really beginning to realize that what happens to you as <v Janet Otwell>a woman, as you are growing up and going through your younger <v Janet Otwell>and midlife years, has a real impact on how you <v Janet Otwell>are able to handle your financial arrangements and whether you're living in poverty or <v Janet Otwell>not after you reach your older years. <v Norma>When you're working the kind of work I'm working and juggling the books like that, one <v Norma>month I'm working, and the next month the patient died or went in a nursing <v Norma>home or whatever, you know, and you got no income coming in,

<v Norma>so- <v Lindsay Wagner>Norma worked without benefits or job security. <v Lindsay Wagner>One day last summer, without money to pay the rent, Norma was evicted. <v Norma>So as every day goes by, you just know you're not going to make that rent. <v Norma>So I thought, sure, I'm not afraid to tell a landlord that. <v Norma>I'd rather be upfront than keep avoid answering the door or the phone. <v Norma>I mean, I'm not going to live like that for nobody, you know. <v Norma>And uh- but what happens to me when I get thrown <v Norma>out of here? That's the depressing part. <v Lindsay Wagner>Today, Norma lives in subsidized housing. <v Lindsay Wagner>Without it, her monthly income of $365 would leave her without even <v Lindsay Wagner>a decent place to live. The demand for affordable housing far exceeds the <v Lindsay Wagner>supply. For the elderly living alone, who are predominantly women, nearly half of <v Lindsay Wagner>their income is spent on housing. <v Norma>I should have sat down and been a economic professor and figured all that out years <v Norma>ago when I was young. But I don't think many women do.

<v Norma>I mean, you just live from paycheck to paycheck, keep getting another job <v Norma>if you need more, and uh just- just the way it goes. <v Norma>[music] <v Pat Taylor>Probably the most important thing I think in our society is some kind of subsidized <v Pat Taylor>housing or senior housing or for all ages. <v Pat Taylor>It seems to be the- the most economical way to help people live dignified lives and be <v Pat Taylor>the least res- least cost to society, actually. <v Pat Taylor>And yet, we've done a fine job of reducing the number of those homes available. <v Pat Taylor>[music] <v Ms. Adams>At the time when you, you know, seem like everything going your way, <v Ms. Adams>you really don't think too much, you know, because I didn't have no proble- no health <v Ms. Adams>problem. I was working and after he passed away, I lived. <v Ms. Adams>You know, I know what- I ha- my life had to keep going. <v Ms. Adams>[music] <v Lindsay Wagner>Miss Adams was a domestic worker. She never dreamed her health would one day prevent her <v Lindsay Wagner>from working. Like 1 in 3 older minority women, Ms. <v Lindsay Wagner>Adams' income is below the poverty line.

<v Ms. Adams>I knew I had diabetes, and then uh my leg <v Ms. Adams>went to swelling and giving me a lot of problem, you know, my feet. <v Ms. Adams>I went into the hospital, and he told me, he said, George, you gonna have to <v Ms. Adams>come in so we gonna have to operate on this leg right away. <v Ms. Adams>I didn't do it. And I waited about two weeks. <v Ms. Adams>And then, one morning I got up and I looked at my toenail and it was dark green looking, <v Ms. Adams>you know, blue lookingt. And I said oh, God, I better get out of here. <v Ms. Adams>So I went on over there. <v Lindsay Wagner>After Ms. Adams' stay in the hospital, she became a client of the 5 hospital homebound <v Lindsay Wagner>elderly program. <v Cara>Hi, Ms. Adams. It's Cara.I'm on my way, OK. <v Cara>All right. Bye bye. <v Lindsay Wagner>Cara ?Paseone? is her caseworker. <v Cara>Ms. Adams is is pretty low income. <v Cara>She gets the minimum Social Security. <v Cara>Therefore, she's eligible for some food stamps. <v Cara>She isn't always eligible for a Medicaid card. <v Cara>She's on what's called a spend down, which means that she will get it some months <v Cara>depending on how much um- how many medical bills she she's paid.

<v Cara>So in the months that she is eligible for Medicaid, then that helps pay for her <v Cara>medications. <v Lindsay Wagner>Ms. Adams spends a large portion of her income on health care and medications, as do many <v Lindsay Wagner>older women who suffer from multiple chronic illness. <v Cara>[knocks] Okay, it's Cara. <v Cara>Hi, Ms. Adams. How are you doing? <v Ms. Adams>OK. How are you? <v Cara>Okay. How have you been? <v Ms. Adams>I have- fine. <v Cara>Just had a birthday. <v Ms. Adams>Yes. <v Lindsay Wagner>The fastest growing segment of the elderly population is the frail elderly, <v Lindsay Wagner>a group which also tends to be the poorest. <v Cara>Do you have any bills that you need for me to look at? <v Ms. Adams>Yes. <v Cara>Where- where are they at? Let's take a look at them. <v Ms. Adams>See them ?inaudible? bills. Man, I had so many letters. <v Ms. Adams>So I might have 5 and 6 letters a day in my mailbox <v Ms. Adams>from Grant Hospital. Oh, child. <v Ms. Adams>Carla help me out a whole lot, she'd say Ms. <v Ms. Adams>Adams, don't worry. I'd be so nervous because I don't like bills and can't <v Ms. Adams>pay em, and I didn't have the money to pay- and they know I didn't have the money to pay

<v Ms. Adams>em. But see, they just be on me anyway, and some of em <v Ms. Adams>turn me over to the collector man. You know, and I had to pay that. <v Ms. Adams>So I was in a mess here, child, for a couple of years back. <v Lindsay Wagner>Because her social security income is so low, Ms. <v Lindsay Wagner>Adams qualifies for some state and federal aid, but is not poor enough to receive <v Lindsay Wagner>aid consistently. Cara and Ms. <v Lindsay Wagner>Adams play a shell game with health care, waiting to scheduled doctor's appointments for <v Lindsay Wagner>when there may be a Medicaid card. <v Lindsay Wagner>Cara spends a huge portion of her time with Ms. <v Lindsay Wagner>Adams trying to make sense of the public aid system and wading through Ms. <v Lindsay Wagner>Adams' medical bills. <v Cara>So you want to apply these toward your spend down, right? <v Ms. Adams>You oughtta- you should have enough now, right? <v Cara>Yeah, I have um-. <v Cara>Generally, when- if they have Medicare and they're pretty low income, they can't afford a <v Cara>supplemental insurance to cover the other 20 percent that Medicare doesn't cover. <v Cara>And if they're not poor enough, they can't qualify for Medicaid to cover those. <v Cara>Those kind of people are in a particularly vulnerable situation.

<v Cara>[music] <v Cara>A lot of older women are just- just have a really low income. <v Cara>They're just living on minimal Social Security or SSI. <v Cara>Not too many get a pension to help supplement that. <v Cara>So they're forced to- to try and survive and pay their bills out of what little Social <v Cara>Security they get. <v Roosevelt>This Social Security measure gives at least some <v Roosevelt>protection to 30 millions of our citizens. <v Betty>This is the man that instigated the Social Security in the first place. <v Betty>I mean, the man had a lot of vision as to helping older <v Betty>people, but the only thing wrong with it is that somewhere <v Betty>along the way, the job that he had wanted done <v Betty>isn't really doing the job. It's not taking care of us as we get older. <v Betty>We are barely surviving on it, and I don't think that's what he planned at. <v Paul Barnes>The original purpose of Social Security when the system was founded

<v Paul Barnes>in 1935 was to replace, in part, <v Paul Barnes>income that's lost by a worker at retirement. <v Paul Barnes>It was not the original intent or the original purpose of Social Security to be <v Paul Barnes>the sole support for a worker at retirement. <v Lindsay Wagner>And yet, for Betty and more than one third of all elderly, unmarried women, there was no <v Lindsay Wagner>choice. Social Security provides at least 90 percent of their income. <v Betty>And so I guess I was like all the rest of them. <v Betty>I just took it for granted that my government was going to take care of me, and <v Betty>had to wait until I got old enough to start drawing it to realize it <v Betty>wasn't doing the job. <v Lindsay Wagner>The formula for calculating Social Security benefits is the same for men and women, but <v Lindsay Wagner>women typically receive less. <v Lindsay Wagner>The formula does not take into account the raising of a family or taking care of others: <v Lindsay Wagner>roles traditionally held by women. <v Paul Barnes>So by virtue of the fact that they enter the workforce later in life, many <v Paul Barnes>of them drop out of the workforce to care for children, and now we're seeing many

<v Paul Barnes>drop out of the workforce to care for aged parents, they wind <v Paul Barnes>up with a number of 0 years in their computation. <v Paul Barnes>So in the case of women, the benefit is generally less <v Paul Barnes>because they work fewer years and have earned less money. <v Lindsay Wagner>Women may also have to live on less when they're widowed. <v Lindsay Wagner>For a couple living on Social Security, their income is based on combined payments to a <v Lindsay Wagner>retired worker and his wife. <v Lindsay Wagner>As a widow, her personal benefits will increase. <v Lindsay Wagner>However, because she loses the benefit paid to her husband, her monthly income <v Lindsay Wagner>will only be 67 percent of what they were living on as a couple. <v Lindsay Wagner>The Social Security benefit formula for survivors dramatically affects women, <v Lindsay Wagner>since half of all women over 65 are widows. <v Pat Taylor>Two people can live really cheaper than one. <v Pat Taylor>So when the one dies, the one just has the one income coming in. <v Pat Taylor>And in this country, we still have most older women living on nothing but Social <v Pat Taylor>Security, which is hard for people to believe.

<v Pat Taylor>You can understand why their lifestyle is gonna be. <v Lindsay Wagner>Pensions are the leading supplement to Social Security. <v Lindsay Wagner>Yet only 23 percent of women over 65 receive any sort of pension <v Lindsay Wagner>income. <v Elaine Fox>As homemakers, during the 30s, 40s, 50s, they were not <v Elaine Fox>earning a pension; they were dependent upon their husbands' pensions. <v Elaine Fox>The laws were such that if their husband indeed had a pension, <v Elaine Fox>their husband necessarily would not assign them as beneficiary. <v Elaine Fox>It might have been on purpose, or it might have been <v Elaine Fox>because the husband may have wanted to take more money during his lifetime. <v Elaine Fox>[music] And so you have women who are left with nothing when their husbands die. <v Ms. Burgess>I never worked at anything <v Ms. Burgess>that that I could draw pension on, you know. <v Ms. Burgess>A place that long. <v Lindsay Wagner>Ms. Burgess is blind and suffers from many physical problems, including diabetes, and <v Lindsay Wagner>she qualifies for several government assistance programs.

<v Lindsay Wagner>However, benefits from these programs can work in conflict. <v Lindsay Wagner>Last December, she received a small increase in her Social Security payment. <v Lindsay Wagner>But when she didn't receive her food stamps for the month, she called her caseworker. <v Ms. Burgess>I call her twice- an extra- a extra. <v Ms. Burgess>I said Ms. ?inaudible?, uh you uh- I didn't get my stamps this month. <v Ms. Burgess>She said, well you're not eligible for em because you got a raise on your social security. <v Lindsay Wagner>The increase in Ms. Burgess's payment had changed her eligibility for public aid. <v Lindsay Wagner>While Social Security was putting $16 in one pocket, public aid took $92 <v Lindsay Wagner>in food stamps out of the other. Because of her raise, Ms. <v Lindsay Wagner>Burgess's income actually dropped $82. <v Ms. Burgess>So it's just kind of hard on you sometime when you especially don't have <v Ms. Burgess>much and look like what little bit you have some time they take that away from <v Ms. Burgess>you. Cause the stamp did help me out pretty good. <v Ms. Burgess>You know, buying my food, by me being a diabetic. <v Ms. Burgess>I have to have a certain kind of food.

<v Ms. Burgess>You can't eat any and everything. <v Ms. Burgess>And uh buy all your medication, like <v Ms. Burgess>my insulin, my heart medicine, my- I have got to- got <v Ms. Burgess>to get medicine for that. <v Ms. Burgess>[music] So it's just really tough. <v Ms. Burgess>You can't hardly make it sometime. <v Ms. Burgess>But, ain't nothing we can do about it seems like, because it's in the government's hand. <v Lindsay Wagner>As America ages, government spending for senior support services has not kept pace <v Lindsay Wagner>with the rapid growth of the elderly population. <v Jonathan Lavin>We've uh receive a certain amount of dollars from the federal government, and <v Jonathan Lavin>over the last 12 years, those dollars have basically been stagnant. <v Jonathan Lavin>There have been no movement in funding of senior service programs at the federal level <v Jonathan Lavin>anywhere near the cost of living increases, and then the phenomenal growth of our senior <v Jonathan Lavin>population nationwide. <v Jonathan Lavin>So we haven't really grasped the national implications of aging outside of the Social <v Jonathan Lavin>Security program, Medicare programs, which, you know, balloon in terms of their costs.

<v Jonathan Lavin>Illinois has met many more of the needs than almost any other state <v Jonathan Lavin>in the union. But here, this recession is reaching Illinois <v Jonathan Lavin>and we're seeing that there's- there still hasn't been a completely- a <v Jonathan Lavin>complete institutionization of that support. <v Lindsay Wagner>For the poorest of the poor elderly, additional government aid is available. <v Lindsay Wagner>Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, is a federal needs-based <v Lindsay Wagner>program to help the blind, disabled and aged who have limited means. <v Lindsay Wagner>In 1991, three quarters of those receiving SSI on the basis of age <v Lindsay Wagner>were women. <v Fay Lomax Cook>One would expect that public assistance for the old, Supplemental Security <v Fay Lomax Cook>Income, would solve the problem of poverty for the old, but <v Fay Lomax Cook>in fact it doesn't, and it doesn't for two reasons. <v Fay Lomax Cook>Number one, even if you get SSI, it doesn't bring you <v Fay Lomax Cook>above the poverty line. <v Fay Lomax Cook>SSI gives you an income below the poverty line.

<v Fay Lomax Cook>Second, many elderly people who are eligible for SSI simply do <v Fay Lomax Cook>not apply for SSI. <v Fay Lomax Cook>There are variety of reasons for this. <v Fay Lomax Cook>Some is that they just don't want to ask for help. <v Fay Lomax Cook>They're afraid they'll be stigmatized. <v Fay Lomax Cook>Another reason is that some people just don't know about it. <v Fay Lomax Cook>But for whatever reason there are poor elderly persons <v Fay Lomax Cook>who are eligible for SSI and not getting it. <v Fay Lomax Cook>And even those who are getting it are not getting enough to get out of poverty. <v Fay Lomax Cook>[music] <v Connie>The real object of the game from day one was <v Connie>you're going to be a married lady and you're going to be a mother and you're going <v Connie>to raise children. <v Connie>I mean, we graduate from high school in '47, and it was just after the war <v Connie>was over. And so everything was hyped as <v Connie>the boys are back, and the world is wonderful, and uh we'll <v Connie>go off into the sunset.

<v Lindsay Wagner>For young women of the 30s, 40s and 50s, planning a secure future meant finding <v Lindsay Wagner>the right man and settling down. <v Lindsay Wagner>In 1954, Connie thought her journey into the sunset had begun. <v Lindsay Wagner>She met and married Bob. They had three children. <v Lindsay Wagner>And like many middle-class women, she believed her future was assured. <v Connie>We um had problems with communication between him and myself, <v Connie>and unfortunately, alcohol entered the picture. <v Connie>And of course, my Catholic upbringing said this marriage is <v Connie>gonna work no matter what, so I hung in there for a total of 25 <v Connie>years. But in trying to divorce him, <v Connie>it got pretty awful. <v Lindsay Wagner>Without a husband to rely on, Connie suddenly had to support herself and soon realized <v Lindsay Wagner>she had few skills that would provide the security she once had. <v Connie>I was 50 at the time that I was divorced and <v Connie>it was like, all right, now go out and get a job and support <v Connie>yourself. And I had no qualifications.

<v Connie>I was trained to be a wife, to be a mother and to <v Connie>be a entertainment committee of one. <v Connie>You are making and enhancing your husband's job, and <v Connie>you're there for the downs as well as the ups, and your <v Connie>reward is no retirement. <v Lindsay Wagner>In 1986, Connie remarried. <v Lindsay Wagner>Happily settled, she believed that with Neil, her emotional and financial security was <v Lindsay Wagner>restored. Without warning, Connie would again find herself alone. <v Connie>We were out for dinner with my son-in-law, and we came home, [music] <v Connie>and Neil died in my arms from a heart attack that <v Connie>was uh two weeks before we would have been married two years. <v Connie>And so I was back to being alone again <v Connie>and trying to start my life all over again. <v Anne Diamond>If you should ever be in a divorce situation or your husband should die, you're in a

<v Anne Diamond>terrible situation. First of all, you're dealing with a tragedy and you have to have the <v Anne Diamond>emotional wherewithal to get through that. <v Anne Diamond>On top of that, you're adding this financial burden that you've never wanted in the first <v Anne Diamond>place. <v Lindsay Wagner>Anne Diamond is a financial planner. <v Lindsay Wagner>She travels the country with a simple message for women: take control. <v Anne Diamond>What it means for women, because we live longer, is we need to accumulate <v Anne Diamond>a larger sum of money. And so if that means that we're not going to get it from Social <v Anne Diamond>Security, we're not going to get it from our employers, then we're going to have to do it <v Anne Diamond>ourselves. <v Elaine Fox>If you can't depend on anybody else, and even if you have a wonderful marriage <v Elaine Fox>and a wonderful relationship with a husband, a woman has <v Elaine Fox>to have a career or expertise or training <v Elaine Fox>and also have some fiscal responsibility herself. <v Anne Diamond>The women of my generation and those before me really grew up thinking this wasn't our <v Anne Diamond>job. This was someone else's job. <v Anne Diamond>You see, we grew up in families where the boys knew <v Anne Diamond>and were aware that they were supposed to do this, but we really never got that message.

<v Lindsay Wagner>The cultural stereotype of men are better at math and women, English, is still <v Lindsay Wagner>widespread. Women must break away from this trap and prepare financially <v Lindsay Wagner>for how they wish to live in their later years. <v Lindsay Wagner>A retirement plan begins with information which only requires a small investment in time. <v Paul Barnes>What we suggest that people do is that well in advance of retirement <v Paul Barnes>that they actually get a benefit estimate, which we can provide. <v Paul Barnes>As a matter of fact, we now have the capability to provide estimates to young people. <v Anne Diamond>There's nothing sadder than getting a person who is thinking about retiring, who's coming <v Anne Diamond>in for private counseling and say- and saying, I wish I had done this, or <v Anne Diamond>if only I had known to participate in my plan. <v Anne Diamond>Why didn't somebody tell me that? <v Anne Diamond>I'm telling them now. And so they have a choice now. <v Lindsay Wagner>For seniors who need additional income, agencies such as the National Center and Caucus <v Lindsay Wagner>on Black Aged, can help with employment training and support services. <v Lindsay Wagner>The National Center primarily helps minority elderly who often require greater

<v Lindsay Wagner>assistance because of past discriminations which limited their opportunities. <v Elaine Wright>Approximately 75 percent of the clients on our program are women. <v Elaine Wright>Some can't write, some cannot read. <v Elaine Wright>So we have to assist. We have to explain, which we do ordinarily anyway. <v Elaine Wright>But we take the time to make sure that they understand what it is they're signing, the <v Elaine Wright>purpose of the documents in order to determine the eligibility status, and also <v Elaine Wright>to assist us in finding out what kind of supportive services we need to provide. <v Lindsay Wagner>Programs such as the Salvation Army's front line feeding program attempt to make a small <v Lindsay Wagner>dent in the wall of poverty. <v Lindsay Wagner>Neighborhood centers and religious organizations are convenient, usually offer aid <v Lindsay Wagner>quickly without strict requirements and can provide a strong sense of community. <v Lindsay Wagner>[music] <v Betty>I was having kind of- little bit of problems where <v Betty>it wasn't the end of the month, believe it or not, it was the beginning of the month. <v Betty>I mean would get my check and it was like a week later, I was broke.

<v Lindsay Wagner>To get through the month, Betty goes to a nearby mission for help. <v Betty>Well, Sister Fields, she gives food differently than most places do. <v Betty>Most places only give food once a month. <v Betty>She gives food every week. <v Betty>So I'm kind of getting both things that I needed, the food and <v Betty>the spiritual guidance. <v Sister Eula Fields>Most of the people who come to us are elderly people <v Sister Eula Fields>on Social Security. <v Sister Eula Fields>Many of them um can hardly make <v Sister Eula Fields>it from one check to another without the services that we provide here <v Sister Eula Fields>at Chicago Missionary Society. <v Sister Eula Fields>They would be hungry, very hungry before the month is over. <v Sister Eula Fields (singing)>I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. <v Jonathan Lavin>The best thing is to be able to take care of yourself. It is to have the income and be

<v Jonathan Lavin>able to choose the services and be able to decide where you're going to live and how <v Jonathan Lavin>you're going to live. But, those options are narrowed constantly, and you- and you <v Jonathan Lavin>get to a point where you- if you're frail and you have functional limitations, <v Jonathan Lavin>you're probably going to need some kind of help. <v Speaker>[all singing] <v Betty>I thought that I would live like I had lived before. <v Betty>Only, I found that doesn't happen. <v Betty>I don't live like I used to. <v Betty>The money doesn't go as far. <v Betty>You're almost afraid to heat your house for fear that you're going to have to take your <v Betty>whole check just to pay for your gas bill and your light bill. <v Sister Eula Fields> I would like to hear from Betty, cause she has a song <v Sister Eula Fields>that's- it's so beautiful. <v Sister Eula Fields>It shows her determination, even though- <v Fay Lomax Cook>Should we have more children in Head Start?

<v Fay Lomax Cook>Should we raise teacher salaries? <v Fay Lomax Cook>Or should we try to eliminate the problem of poverty for old people? <v Fay Lomax Cook>How can we choose among the vast array of alternatives? <v Fay Lomax Cook>And I think that in this era in this country, <v Fay Lomax Cook>that we should be able to accomplish all of those objectives <v Fay Lomax Cook>and that we shouldn't have to choose between them. <v Betty>I'm very glad to be here. <v Betty>I haven't been here for a while. I had been in the hospital, <v Betty>and I'm very happy to see all of you people here again. <v Betty (singing)>When I first found Jesus, something o'er me fell. Like lightning- <v Betty>I get sick. I get to hurting. <v Betty>I sound like a broken record. <v Betty>Oh, my leg hurts. <v Betty>Oh, this hurts. Who wants to listen to that? <v Betty>Nobody. <v Betty>So you suffer it and you just try to get along the best you can, and

<v Betty>there's so many just like me, so many of em out there. <v Betty>And I feel for em because I know what they're going through. <v Speaker>[all singing hymn together] <v Pat Taylor>I don't think though most people realize how grim the future is, because there's all <v Pat Taylor>sorts of data and statistics that say that we're going to have more poverty among older <v Pat Taylor>women in the next, you know, what, by the year 2000 than we <v Pat Taylor>do today. It's going to be the one part of our population that's going to become more <v Pat Taylor>poverty stricken. That's why we have to find some other kind of social system in this <v Pat Taylor>country. <v Lindsay Wagner>Increasing numbers of older women are becoming dependent on social programs for their <v Lindsay Wagner>sole support. As they grow older, their chances of beating poverty diminish. <v Lindsay Wagner>The only escape for younger women is economic independence, which is still <v Lindsay Wagner>hindered by inequalities in social policies and in the workplace. <v Lindsay Wagner>[all singing]

<v Betty>And this is what I have to look forward to. <v Betty>And uh sometimes it makes you wonder, you know, is it worth it all? <v Betty>Your job is done, what's left for you? <v Betty>I've got pictures <v Betty>and memories, that's it. Everything else is gone. [singing hymn]