The people who have played by the rules and paid all those years into social security and worked long tedious hours have stories.
http://articles.philly.com/...
First of all I want to say, life is short. We must try to live as if every day is our last but plan on a tomorrow. This is becoming increasingly hard for seniors. The Senior of today for the most part does not have a home paid for. For too many seniors, are retired in name only. The seniors today are working somewhere for low wages or no wages. The low wages is that job as a greeter for Walmart. Seniors are flipping burgers at the local fast food franchise. Many are caring for elderly parents or providing with their meager incomes for out of work children who are living at home again. Worse yet sometimes they are doing both things.
I know seniors who are trying to make ends meet with tightening their belt to the point that they skip meals, cut prescription meds in half, shop at consignment shops and feel treated or guilty if they get a movie night out once in a 6 month period. There are so many dreams that have vanished under the trickle down economics that present themselves today in the way of a social security check or a small paycheck being stretched to the max. The children cannot help that much as the children are struggling themselves.
Seniors of today worry about how to make a month's pay feed more than two people.
Retirement was not supposed to be this way. They wake up in the mornings and are either caregiving to a spouse or loved ones while feeling cheated in the most hurtful ways. They want to leave an inheritence to their kids but the bank took the homes.
The little things like going to visit friends has become so hard as the friends are divided in many cases by idealogical belief. There are no bridge games.. There is no time.
There is precious little free time and NO time or money for travel or vacation.
It is a chore to rise and face endless days of worry and thought by this time in life some sort of success would have been achieved. Seniors think instead of a trip, just being able to pay for the life insurance as not to be a bigger burden for their unemployed or underemployed children comes first. As we get older, we tend to start getting more sensitive with our feelings because so many want to dismiss us and scam us. A senior that fits in this category starts blaming themselves for not planning better. Planning might have given then a better safety net but when the crash came from greed, even savings from 401K's were wiped clean. Credit soon disappeared and medical help for aging seniors got more frequent. There was a time that a social security check and a home paid for was normal. Calling a plumber was not even a thought of can we afford it or just do without the washer and wash clothes by hand.
in the memory of seniors, there were gardens and vegetables and local owned shoe stores, along with reasonable costs for clothes at real stores and not the local thrift store. The had me down days were thought to be of a by gone era as a child but ..no...it is one's life. People used to be able to go to the salon for manicures and pedicures or even the beauty salon. It was what many seniors did.
Seniors loved to save up for a small boat and fish a little.. Now there is No time because there is work.Sometimes there is just no money.
This is the American Senior living on a fixed income with a ruling, greedy, handful of Corporate slavemasters who just can't make their elders or disabled neighbor suffer enough. A handful of idealogs have seized the federal government to cut even more safety nets and make them watch carefully if that meager social security check arrives or that VA check for the soldier who stood on foreign soil dodging bullets will be late.
They are sad people who had worked hard and played by the rules and paid into a system that people like the Koch brothers want to hurt and even kill. These are people who feel they are left behind in a world that will take decades or generations to heal and long past their lifespan. These people suffer not only physically but emotionally.
They don't get the cruise or the fat bonus check or even a fair wage. They are disposable people who have infirmities and aches and pains and stress. This is not how retirement was supposed to be.
The people of this nation should hang their heads in shame for creating such a mess of a government that is suppose to care for the general welfare . Many of the people who stand behind the haters and are retired don't know propoganda when they hear it and need to blame something or someone for this mess so they blame the federal government. The Rush Limbaughs and Ted Cruz and Sara Palins have their money and security and make more money from scaring the older generation. They give them false hope that if the man in the white house was removed then their problems would not exist. It is pretty easy to mess with a senior's mind. It is like manipulating a child.
Today I passed a senior holding a sign that said, " Just a little down on luck at present".
I see too many signs and too many cans of tuna in shopping carts and yet people scream about food stamps if their income fares better than their neighbor. I don't get it . I don't understand it. I do live some of this and it is heartbreaking. All of our energy of stopping wars that didn't stop, fighting for justice and equal treatment has to be refought but we are tired. There are all kinds of battles and not all are fought on the battlefield . Some are of the heart and mind. I dream of going to New York and have my kids see a Broadway show. I dream of my husband to walk again, without pain. I dream of not shuffling bills. I dream of my grown kids succeding and coming by to visit with their own success...That is all it is ..A dream.
It seems like just yesterday I was a kid playing in a rock band and dancing to the Beatles and living life in better conditions that we live now. It seems like yesterday that while working, I looked forward to my small salary as I could at least go out to a movie. There was a middle class. There was something to look forward to..a retirement.
There was a retirement for my grandparents and to some degree my parents until Reagonomics took hold. How dare the wealthy and well off want to inflict more pain to the very teachers, fireman, veterans, nurses and factory workers of the 70's through 90's their little safety net and leave them behind for the true death panels. The death panel of despair. Damn the Upper crust for crushing a generation of dreams and retirement so they, the well to do can buy another 50 shares of stock, or 5th house, or another bank account offshore to avoid paying their fair share to keep the country going without provoking rage and pain.
Sleep well rich folks wrapped in your satin sheets while most of us are walking the floor trying to figure out how we will survive another day with little food and scarce resources and fear of our incomes being delayed or stopped until you finish your spoiled tantrum you so enjoy, Sleep well. People should be flying their flags upside down.. This country is in distress.