The Social Security Trap
My dad didn’t believe my mom when she announced that she was leaving him. Desperate, after years spent begging him to accept treatment for a worsening mental illness, she threatened to move out if he didn’t comply with his doctor’s recommendations. “Where will you go?” he asked.
A former stay-at-home parent of five grown children, all just beginning their careers around the country, my mom had no money of her own and no job. Given her sparse work history, it seemed unlikely that she’d be able to find a position that allowed her to support herself. Even if she did, at 58 years old, she was rapidly approaching the end of her working years. And unlike my father, she’d have little in the way of Social Security to rely on in retirement.
She left anyway, free-falling to a life of almost certain poverty.
America’s retirement system is stacked against mothers. Women are more likely thanshe go?
