I’ve been reading a lot of commentary lately on how seniors have it easy these days, along with not-so-subtle suggestions that our benefits should be restricted and cut back. According to many in the media, we’re rolling in dough, and younger generations are footing the bill. This boomer takes strong offence to this line of thinking for a variety of reasons. While we paid to support past senior generations with our 50% tax deductions for many decades during our working years, and contributed our own money to what now pays our Canada Pension Plan supplements (CPP), there is a movement to raise the ceiling on our eligibility for Old Age Security (OAS), claw back our benefits, and generally force the boomer generation to tighten our belts . . . again!

What those Gen X, Y, Z, and others forget is that we worked our entire lives, endured 20% interest rates on mortgages in the seventies, and still managed to plan for our retirement. Middle-class boomers absolutely have benefited from our investment in real estate, but our first house did not have granite countertops, central air, and a two-car garage. We also lived in a variety of spartan bedsits, shared accommodations, and flats when we were young and broke. We didn’t have careers, we had jobs. We had to show up at our workplace every day (working from home was unheard of), and we were allotted two weeks of vacation annually. My first house in the seventies (when I was in my thirties) was a townhouse with linoleum floors, no A/C, no clothes dryer because we couldn’t afford that extra appliance, and it was an hour’s drive from work—on a good day. I never lived in a detached house until I married for the second time when I was fifty-five years old. Don’t ever assume all boomers always had it easy.

Here is something else to consider. According to a recent article in The Globe and Mail Investor, “By 2050, more than 1.7 million Canadians are expected to be living with dementia, with an average of 685 individuals being diagnosed each day”. This is my reality already, and I am painfully conscious of the fragility of our current financial situation. While we do live comfortably on our current savings (we have no employer pension plan), and perhaps better than many, I have many senior friends and acquaintances who find it hard to make ends meet. Most seniors and boomers, regardless of our financial situation, fear that our lives will outlast our money.

It was predicted there would be a tsunami of large family homes hitting the market when boomers retired. There’s a reason we are holding on to our too-big-for-our-current-needs houses. It’s our hedge against being broke. At rates of $10-15,000.00 per month (that’s $180,000.00 per year, after tax, if you care to do the math) to keep someone in memory care, we can blow through our savings very quickly. What happens then? Selling our home in a down market would very likely not net enough to last our lifetime. Plus, there are all the associated moving costs, and if we move into rental accommodation, we still have no guarantee that our income will cover the rent for the duration. Our home is our financial nest egg, ensuring we can afford a decent place in a seniors’ residence when we need it.

Governments have ignored the needs of seniors to the point that baby boomers will have to rely on expensive private care, or risk waiting months or years on a waiting list for space in a government facility. Even those who struggle to stay in their own homes personally bear the costs of hiring private PSWs because agency-provided personnel are poorly trained, underpaid, and often not committed to the work. Family caregivers are buying medical supplies, paying for transportation to appointments, and covering the cost of prescriptions and devices not covered by OHIP.  We recently paid more than $5,000.00 for one tooth implant for my husband, an unexpected and unwelcome expense. Many seniors cannot afford veterinarian care for their beloved pet companions. Moving to a less expensive community could mean limited access to medical specialists and services that aging requires, such as grocery stores, recreation, libraries, and other services. My retired brother waited eleven years for a family doctor when he moved to Prince Edward County, a popular retirement community about three hours east of Toronto.

As someone who attends regular caregiver support meetings (my husband has dementia), it is heartbreaking to hear the stories shared by people struggling with the challenges of taking care of a loved one. Many, if not most caregivers are seniors themselves, in their seventies and eighties, barely able to care for themselves, let alone a loved one as well. Every member of government at all levels should be required to sit in on a couple of these meetings to better understand the caregiving challenges from those living it. Lack of financial support, poor PSW training, monitoring, and pay, the government’s ignorance of and failure to address the concerns of seniors and their caregivers, and general inattention to fixing the situation are all symptoms of a failing system.

We’re probably the longest-living demographic in the history of the world. Raising the ceiling on income eligibility for OAS is misguided. Caregiving by and for loved ones is a service that costs the taxpayer nothing. We get no tax deduction, no compensation for the free daily services we provide, and no assurance that we will be provided for in a government-run facility when our savings run out. The Ontario Government’s current Bill 121 seems to be heading in the right direction, but implementation and its benefits might not be felt until after we’re in the ground. If there is any money left over when we croak, then it will go back into the economy via our heirs and beneficiaries.

The playing field is changing. If you think I’m making this up, I invite you to attend a caregiver support group meeting anywhere, and you will come away with a better appreciation for how so many senior boomers are struggling, even so-called middle-class seniors. Baby boomers have always been resourceful and self-sufficient, but pulling the rug out from under us at the eleventh hour is wrong.

Do not even consider cutting seniors’ benefits. I have no objection to high-income seniors paying more, but do not penalize the middle-class. The cost of living is being redefined. Low-income seniors are already a recognized demographic, and can always use more help. Middle-class boomers and seniors are going to need as much money as we can accumulate to care for ourselves for as long as we live, because no one else is going to do it for us.