Finances may be stressing out a lot of adults these days, but new poll data shows the impacts of inflation on older adults specifically. Women, as well as those who are 50 to 64 years old, are more likely than men or people over 65 to report a lot of stress about personal finances, the poll finds.
Stress is also running high in those over 50 who have fair or poor physical or mental health, according to findings from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.
Among people 50 and older, 47% said inflation negatively affected them in the past year, 16% said they’ve had a hard time affording medical costs in the past year and 52% said they had to cut back on everyday spending due to rising costs. Of those under 65, 58% said they cut back on spending in the past year. People in their 50s and 60s were more likely to report spending less due to inflation than those over 65.
Data showed that 69% of people of all ages polled in fair or poor physical health, and 76% with poor or fair mental health were cutting back, as were 60% of those with lower incomes.
Among caregivers, 14% said they were fretting because of the financial demands that caregiving has on them while 27% reported some stress from it.
“Our biggest surprise from this poll is that the age group most likely to be affected or stressed by pressures on personal finances is not the group whose incomes are more likely to be ‘fixed’ by reliance on Social Security or retirement savings,” Helen Levy, PhD, a health economist and professor at U-M’s Institute for Social Research, said in a statement.
The poll is based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.
