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National Senior Fraud Awareness Day
By Hilary Dalin, Director, Office of Elder Justice and Adult
Protective Services
The U.S. Senate designated yesterday, May 15, 2018 as National
Senior Fraud Awareness Day. They took this action to raise awareness
about the increasing fraudulent activities directed at older adults.
Protecting the rights and preventing abuse of older adults and people with
disabilities is a key priority for us at ACL, and we are working with
states to develop systems and programs that prevent abuse from happening,
while also supporting individuals who have experienced abuse. With our
partners at the National Center on Elder Abuse, we also are counting down
the days until June 15, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, on which we unite
with communities around the world to shine a light on this critical issue.
National Senior Fraud Awareness day also made us think about
financial security as a whole, and inspired us to write this post about the
importance of financial literacy, planning for retirement, and achieving
economic empowerment and security.
ACL supports multiple initiatives dedicated to promoting
financial security in the lives of older adults, people with disabilities,
and families and caregivers in communities across the country. From
programs to assist youth with disabilities to find employment, to
supporting caregivers to balance work with assisting an aging loved one,
ACL is committed to promoting the financial capability of everyone we
serve.
I would like to highlight two programs that have made a
particular difference for older adults: the Pension Counseling and
Information Program; and the National Education and Resource Center on
Women and Retirement.
There are approximately 700,000 private (and thousands of
public) pension and retirement plans in the U.S. Given that an
employee may have worked for several employers, and these employers may
have merged, sold their plans, or gone bankrupt, it is difficult for the
average person to know where to go to get help in finding out whether he or
she is receiving all of their pension benefits. Without access to an
earned pension, these Americans risk living in poverty during retirement—or
being unable to retire at all. For many working Americans, a pension may be
the only asset or savings.
ACL’s pension
counseling projects provide hands-on assistance in pursuing
claims and helping older adults to access pension plans lost as a result of
mergers and acquisitions; answer questions about complex plan provisions;
and make targeted referrals to other professionals for assistance.
Since they were established in 1993, the projects have successfully
recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in client benefits, a return of
more than nine dollars for every federal dollar invested in the program.
Complementing the direct services and legal expertise of the
Pension Counseling and Information Program, the National
Resource and Education Center on Women and Retirement, operated
by the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), works to improve
opportunities for women to secure retirement income through effective
savings strategies. The program provides education, skills building,
and retirement planning tools particularly to low-income women to enhance
their financial security in retirement. For example, last year WISER
provided training and distributed educational tools to women in rural West
Virginia; American Indian women in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and child care
providers in Charleston, West Virginia. They provide educational
brochures, blog posts, and training materials that explain complex
financial and retirement concepts such as 401K’s, employer-matched
benefits, and compounded interest for maximum public understanding.
At ACL, we believe that every person should have the right to
make choices and to control the decisions in and about their lives, and we
know economic security can be a key factor in helping people live
independently through programs like these, ACL helps make this possible for
more people.
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