Excerpt from When Parents Grow Old Along with this experience of rejection, most old people suffer a sharp reduction of income; some have no income at all. The last, census showed that, whereas men 55 to 64 years old had a medianincome of those 65 and over had a median income of only $986. Despite the expansion of Social Security and higher benefits, social insurance and pensions alone are rarely sufficient for an ade quate standard of living, and savings, if any, may be wiped out by severe or prolonged illness. More than one-sixth of those 65 and over are believed to be supported by children or other relatives. There are no longer many large family homesteads with warm chimney corners for the old folks, and little household tasks for their hands. Living space has shrunk, and much domestic work is now sent out or mechanized. The high cost of housing makes it hard for even well-to-do families to arrange suitable care for a parent who is getting old. Few with such a parent escape difficulties alto gether, whether with finances, housing, health, or personalities. Perhaps you have no such problem now. Some day you may have. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.