EVELYN BENNETT, 71: The rising cost of living led her to return to work as a full-time nurse at the Detroit Area Agency on Aging. Her health insurance relieves medical costs.Evelyn Bennett, 71
Nurse's job gives couple security
Hit by rising cost of lving that stretches every dollar, wife returns to work
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Evelyn Bennett kept busy in retirement, though she hadn't been quite ready to stop working when her employer closed its doors.
She tried hard to get another job, but sensed that at 65, her age was a major deterrent. So she got involved in community and church activities, even took a computer class. Still, she was restless, and rising taxes and other costs made it increasingly uncomfortable for her to rely solely on her Social Security check.
"Finances were getting a little strained," she says. "You can't ever really figure out how much you're going to need because the cost of living keeps going up and up and up."
Now at the age of 71, she finds herself working full time again as a registered nurse, relieved that she can afford better health insurance for herself and her husband, and pleased that the new vinyl siding on her Detroit house has just been paid off.
Though changes in Social Security aren't being proposed for folks who are Bennett's age, her experience foretells some of the questions that Americans may face as they reach what they had hoped would be retirement age: Will they be able to cover basic costs, will they be discriminated against because of their age if they decide to go back to work, and will they even be healthy enough to work?
These questions may be especially important for women, who are on average expected to live an additional 20 years if they are 65 today, compared with an additional 17 years for men, according to the Social Security Administration.
Bennett initially worked at the Internal Revenue Service, but cashed in her pension to pay for nursing school at Wayne State University. After graduating in 1975, she spent 23 years working for a number of Detroit-area hospitals and health care institutions. In 1998, the home-care clinic where she was working went out of business. Despite her experience, she couldn't get another job.
"My qualifications were fine, but when they looked at my age, they never called me back," Bennett says. "I said the salary was negotiable, so it wasn't salary."
It wasn't until she signed up for a computer class at the Detroit Area Agency on Aging a year ago that she saw that the organization had an opening for a full-time nurse. She wished it had been a part-time job, but now is happy she applied for the full-time position.
She thinks she's healthy enough to work another five years, but administering to ailing senior citizens, she does worry how talk of extending the retirement age several years might impact folks who aren't able to work for so long.
"I think that it's highly individualized," she says. "Right now, I minister to so many seniors who are much younger than I am, and their health is really very poor. Some people are able to work past 65, there are so many others who have to retire before 65. There are a lot of variables there."
You can reach Lisa Zagaroli at (202) 906-8206 or lzagaroli@detnews.com.
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