A recent study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that, despite falling during the first part of the last decade, the number of poverty-stricken seniors is once again growing.
Between 2005 and 2009, both the rate of poverty among American seniors and the number of new entrants into poverty rose, according to the report.
The EBRI report found that poverty rates fell in the first half of the last decade for almost all age groups of older Americans (age 50 or older), though they increased since 2005 for every age group.
Almost 15% of those older than 85 were in poverty in 2009, compared with about 10.5% of those older than 65, EBRI found. In 2009, 6% of those age 85 older fell into poverty.