AARP Backs Legislation to Protect Older Investors

​Older adults lose billions every year to financial exploitation, which often eats into retirement savings and other funds built up over decades of work. One in 10 older adults in the U.S. have experienced illegal or improper use of their funds, property or assets, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. ​​

That’s why AARP is supporting the Senior Security Act of 2025, a bipartisan bill introduced earlier this year that would help combat increasingly sophisticated financial fraud and scams targeting older adults. An earlier version of the bill unanimously passed the House in 2023 but did not become law. ​​

The proposed 2025 legislation would establish a task force at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to identify specific challenges older Americans face as investors and would require it to report to Congress every two years on its activities and recommendations. The bill also calls on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study and report on the actual costs of elder financial exploitation.

The GAO report would spotlight high-tech scams and trends, including robocalls and voice spoofing, that impact older investors and their families. That information could help policymakers and advocates stay ahead of the rapidly changing landscape of financial fraud. ​​

“Criminals steal billions of dollars from consumers every year,” AARP Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Bill Sweeney wrote in a June 5 letter to Reps. Josh Gottheimer (R-N.J.) and Ann Wagner (D-Mo.), who cosponsored the bill. “The effects on victims and their families can be financially and emotionally devastating, especially for older Americans.” ​​

Pinpointing financial abuse ​​

The scope of financial losses among older adults is hard to estimate. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that in 2023, adults 60 and older reported losing nearly $2 billion to fraud. However, underreporting of crimes is common, and the estimated real total losses, according to the FTC, ranged anywhere from $7.1 billion to $61.5 billion. The FTC estimated that these types of crimes cost those who reported their losses nearly $130,000 each. ​​A separate 2023 AARP report, which used three sets of data to study the financial exploitation of older Americans, estimated annual reported and unreported losses to be about $20 billion. Much of that exploitation was at the hands of people the victims knew. This may be why only about $8 billion of those losses are reported to police, according to the methodology developed by AARP and the University of Chicago. ​