Income and Poverty in the United States in Comparative Perspective: The Role of Income and Wealth in Guaranteeing Economic Security in Old Age

Volume 16, No. 3 Public Policy & Aging Report Page 23 Volume 16, No. 3 Public Policy & Aging Report Older Persons in Comparative Perspective Great strides have been made in reducing poverty and economic insecurity amongst individuals ages 65 and older in most rich countries over the past fifty years. Older persons are increasingly able to live long and relatively healthy lives, free of poverty and in reasonably secure situations, and are increasingly less likely to share accommodations with their adult children. Indeed, most resource transfers between generations now go from elders to children and not vice versa as was more or less the case in the United States before 1960 (Engelhardt and Gruber 2006; Engelhardt, Gruber, and Perry 2005; Clark, et al. 2004 ). But older persons’ income poverty has not been eradicated, especially in the English-speaking nations. And women’s poverty status in old age remains a major concern in most rich societies. In order to most effectively design a system to further reduce poverty and increase security in old age, we need to know more about how older persons live and what other sources of economic support they might have, over and above their annual incomes. A comparative cross-national perspective can offer important insights in such a process. In this brief paper, we extend prior cross-national analyses of older persons’ economic well-being by assessing the effects Timothy M. Smeeding James Williamson Eva Sierminska Janet Gormick Andrea Brandolini Income and Poverty in the United States in Comparative Perspective: The Role of Income and Wealth in Guaranteeing Economic Security in Old Age