Key Money Pointers for Moms on Their Day (Chicago Tribune)

Mothers not only sacrifice their time, energy and patience, they sacrifice lifelong earnings, pension benefits and Social Security because they quit jobs or work part-time to care for children, parents or other family. Americans lost an estimated average of more than $600,000, including pension contributions, over a lifetime to care for elderly relatives and friends, according to a 1999 study for the MetLife Mature Market Institute. In 2010, the Social Security Administration reported that women age 65 and older received average annual Social Security income of $11,794 compared with $15,231 for men. Women often find themselves with inadequate retirement savings after their husbands die. “Almost half of single women over the age of 65 face the real crisis of outliving their financial resources,” said Tatjana Meschede, researcher for the Institute on Assets and Social Policy.