Difficult decisions - Data and methods underlying the Elder Economic Security Standard

Developing the Elder Economic Security Standard required a number of decisions about what elements to include and where to obtain recent data to support county-level information when possible. This presentation outlines the key methodological steps and decisions made in calculating the Elder Standard. It describes the components of housing costs for both renters and homeowners, and how those costs were assigned in multigenerational households. While the cost of food using USDA standards was straightforward, adjusting national costs to local levels was an additional step. Determining health care costs required calculating the premium costs of Medicare Part B, selecting Medi-gap and Part D prescription policies to price, as well as identify out of pocket costs for different health statuses. Transportation costs were based on a national survey, and miscellaneous costs were calculated as 20% of the other costs based on data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey. The Elder Standard was developed by Wider Opportunities for Women in Washington, DC and the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, and refined in collaboration with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. The discussion of important analytical decisions made by these groups shows that the Elder Standard provides an adequate, but very basic, standard of living for older adults.