Trends in Economic Insecurity among Older Adults in California, 2015 - 2023: Using the California Elder Index
Qianyun Wang, Lauren Vuong, Natalie Kim, Mohammad Khorgamphar, Sithara Diunugala, Shreya Paul, Kathryn Kietzman, D Imelda Padilla-Frausto

TL;DR
This paper examines how economic insecurity among older adults in California has changed from 2015 to 2023 using a more accurate income measure than the Federal Poverty Level.
Contribution
The study introduces a new framework using the California Elder Index to identify income gaps among older adults that traditional poverty measures miss.
Findings
The percentage of older adults with income below the California Elder Index and Federal Poverty Level increased steadily from 2015 to 2023.
Economic insecurity shifted toward more older adults falling into the CEI Middle-Income Gap or very-low-income categories.
Single older adults, especially renters and racial minorities, consistently face higher economic insecurity than older couples.
Abstract
The California Elder Index (CEI) provides a better measurement of the income older adults need to cover basic living expenses compared to the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) guidelines. The CEI includes costs for housing, healthcare, food, transportation, and miscellaneous, while the FPL includes food costs only. Using the CEI, we document economic insecurity among older Californians from 2015 to 2023. Since the FPL is widely used to determine eligibility for public programs, we provide CEI and FPL comparisons to show that many older adults with income above the FPL, but below the CEI, lack the income needed for day-to-day expenses. This group falls within the “CEI Income Gap” which we disaggregated into two categories: “CEI Low-Income Gap”(below the CEI and 100-199% FPL) and “CEI Middle-Income Gap” (below the CEI and ≥ 200% FPL). Analyses also include those classified as “very-low-income”…
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Taxonomy
TopicsElder Abuse and Neglect · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis
