Jo has lived and worked in western Massachusetts since the late 1990s, arriving fresh out of New York City’s Hunter College School of Social Work where she focused on homelessness policy, prison reform, and earned an MSW.
A society should be judged by how we treat our elders.A recent study by the University of Massachusetts measured the Elder Economic Security index, which is essentially the resources that elders require in order to age in place and meet their individual needs. Sixty-one percent of elderly individuals in Massachusetts live below the index cut-off line for minimum required resources. That means their income doesn’t allow them to age in place independently while meeting basic needs. In fact, because of our relatively high cost of living, Massachusetts is the second worst state in the nation for elder economic security, second only to Mississippi.