More and More Retirees Are Experiencing It ... Poverty The good news is that your prospects for living a long life have never been better. Both the number and proportion of humans living to 80, 90, and 100 years are increasing at nearly the speed of light. And with each passing decade, life gets longer and longer with seemingly no end in sight. In fact, if life-expectancy were a stock it would be selling like hot cakes. Now the not-so-good news. Just as long life becomes a "sure thing" so does poverty. A new study says that more and more elder Americans are destined to outlive their money. The study explodes the myth that late-life poverty is an uncommon occurrence. In reality, "it can touch a surprisingly high percentage of Americans", say researchers. "Forty percent of America's elderly population will experience at least one year below the poverty line at some point between the ages of 60 and 90," say authors of a joint study by Washington and Cornell Universities. The study, by Drs. Mark R. Rank and Thomas A. Hirschl, appears in the July 1999 issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences. According to the two researchers, those Americans reaching the age of 60 can expect to live an average of 21 more years. About 30 percent of the 60-year-olds will experience poverty at some point during their final years. However, some groups will be hit harder than others. For example, poverty, say the researchers, varies dramatically by race, education and marital status. Being Black, having less than 12 years of education, and not being married substantially increase the likelihood of poverty during the elderly years. The study also showed that men and women are equally at risk to live in poverty. By age 70, about 18 percent of the elderly population will have spent one year below the poverty line, say the researchers. By age 75, nearly a quarter of those elders will have experienced poverty. And the percentage rises as one ages. "What this analysis reveals is that rather than being an event occurring to a small minority of the elderly population, poverty is an experience that can touch a sizable number of elderly Americans at some point during their later years," say Rank and Hirschl. What sort of boomer trend will this prophetic "kick-in-the-pants" create? Retirement planning services, already phenomenally popular, will become a major growth industry. After all, the boomers aren't about to allow the limits of poverty to cramp their style. Ask any boomer how he plans to experience every last minute of retirement, and he'll probably say, "Just like Frank ... My Way".