Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage of Older Americans, 2010

This Fact Sheet by Ke Bin Wu of the AARP Public Policy Institute shows that Social Security and Medicare helped older households weather the Great Recession and its aftermath better than other age groups.  Nonetheless, median income for older households remained the lowest of any age group other than those headed by a person age 15 to 24.  Median household income for older households was $31,408 in 2010.  In addition,  according to a more accurate measure of poverty produced by the Census Bureau nearly one in six older Americans were in poverty in 2010, well above the nine percent estimated under the official poverty measure.