Abstract
The fear of poverty and outliving one’s resources is an increasingly common experience among today’s senior citizens. For millions of American seniors this fear is justified. In only four years, the number of seniors at risk of outliving their resources increased by nearly 2 million households. Using the Senior Financial Stability Index, economic insecurity among senior households increased by one-third, rising from 27 percent to 36 percent from 2004 to 2008 (see Figure 1). "is steady and dramatic increase occurred even before the full force of the Great Recession hit. With e#ects of the recession impacting all demographic groups, economic security of seniors has deteriorated further.