In US, 8 million baby boomers go hungry amid health and economic challenges
According to a new study, millions of older Americans are turning to charity for food as they face unemployment, housing shortages and poor health
Alison Moodie
GuardianUK
Wednesday 29 July 2015
The baby boomer generation was supposed to be the one that slid into its twilight years with everything sorted out – health, financial stability and long life expectancy. But that may not be the case. According to a new study, boomers – defined by the authors as people between the ages of 50 and 64 – are facing a host of health and economic challenges.
The study, released last week by Feeding America – a nonprofit network of food banks – with funding from the AARP Foundation, a lobbying group for older adults, found that roughly 8 million baby boomers are going hungry and are turning to charity for food. According to the report, which surveyed 60,000 people, the main challenges fueling the crisis were unemployment, housing shortages and poor health.
“Our network serves 13 million older adults and we expect that number to rise,” said Matt Knott, president of Feeding America. “This is absolutely the right time to be taking a hard look at the data to determine the challenges our mature clients face.”
The AARP report uses the US Department of Agriculture’s definition of food insecurity, which is “a household-level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food”. According to the study of the older adults relying on the services of Feeding America, 62% were baby boomers.
In addition to detrimental health outcomes for the roughly 10,000 people in America who turn 65 each day, there are troubling signs that the challenges facing boomers are spilling out in unexpected ways into the economy.
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