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UCLA professor to speak on poverty amongst the elderly

Poverty rates amongst the elderly in the United States are at an all time low, according to the Pew Research Center.

Professor and chair of the Department of Economics, Kathleen McGarry will give a lecture on Tuesday about poverty amongst the elderly at California State University, Long Beach.

The Rho Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, an honor society at CSULB, will host the speech. Steve Yamarik, professor of economics and the president of the Rho Chapter, said that the chapter chose the topic of discussion.

“The question is can we learn anything about why there was such a decrease in poverty,” Yamarik said. “From those lessons can we apply them to other groups.”

Yamarik said McGarry’s lecture might remind the audience that, not too long ago, the elderly was actually the poorest of the age groups.

The lecture intends to focus on specific programs like Medicaid, Medicare and others that help decrease elderly poverty rates, according to a press release from Thursday.

The lecture, titled “50 Years of the War on Poverty: What it meant for the Elderly,” will also discuss the beginning of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s proposed war on poverty. Poverty rates were at 35 percent when Johnson made his announcement in 1964. Since then, the elderly poverty rates have fallen to 10 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.

Yamarik said each year the national Rho chapter elects 10 to 12 visiting scholars, and they go to different universities to discuss their topics in lectures and also talk about graduate school. McGarry will be at CSULB from March 9-11 as a visiting scholar of Phi Beta Kappa.

McGarry will be sitting in on lectures in the economics, political science and gerontology departments and will work with CSULB professors to coordinate topics to be discussed in their classes. McGarry’s area of focus is end-of-life expenses and differences in pay due to each individual’s disability status.

According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2013 the overall poverty rate dropped for the first time since 2006. The official poverty rate was over 14 percent, down half a percent from 2012.

People aged 65 and older have a nine percent poverty rate, approximately. People ages 18 to 64 have over a 13 percent poverty rate.

The departments of economics, political science, gerontology and family and consumer sciences are hosting the event alongside the Rho Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

The lecture will be held in the University Student Union in the Beach Auditorium at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. It will be followed by a question and answer session.

*Editor’s Note: McGarry said she was unavailable for comment at this time.

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