Financial Support For The Older Population The elderly’s income source in the United States is from transfer payments primarily from government programs (Sources for Income of Older Adults, n.d.). They may also benefit from the income of their property. This is in the form of rent, interest, and dividends. Moreover, according to Novak, the federal funding doubled since 1960; however, these income sources provided nearly a quarter of total income as of the early 1980s. Half of the income is from these transfers and property in a household with an elderly. Various sources of income for the older population in the United States. Financial Support For The Older Population Family caregivers of older adults are faced with financial strain (Schulz et al., 2016). This is as a result of their role of caregiving. National Alliance for Caregivers (NAC), together with the ARRP institute for public policy, has confirmed these economic effects of caregivers’ role. Moreover, family caregivers with impaired older adults suffer more economic impact. Depending on the caregiving needs and intensity, the family caregiver’s job may be negatively impacted. The caregiver’s ability to stay in the workforce is disrupted, and as a result, this jeopardizes their income. The leading cause is the high demands of caregiving of the family. Moreover, personal retirement savings, job security, career opportunities, and the family caregiver’s overall financial well-being are negatively impacted. A family caregiver’s responsibilities may disrupt the continued employment, especially in situations that require a high level of caregiving. Some research says that working caregivers have to quit their job to have more time in caring for older adults. This may have been driven by the lack of a flexible schedule in their career. These family caregivers left their job since they could not afford to hire a salaried caregiver. Most significantly, the caregivers tasked with health care responsibilities often will experience loss in their productivity. Therefore, the caregivers that are least present in the workforce often face the risk of economic losses Economic effect of an aging population on society. An ageing has big impact on the society’s labor market, government’s spending tax and the wide economy. With increase in the dependency ratio, the working population will reduce. This makes for more people to claim pension benefit. The imposed high tax rates will shrink the workforce. Also, the economy will be impacted such that the government’s spending on pensions and health care will increase. Note, the older adults pay lower income taxes. This is because they are not working. Therefore, the elderly with existing debt issues cause the spending commitments to be high. This also creates low tax revenue for the government. The aging population makes the working people pay higher taxes, which creates disincentives for firms to invest and workers to perform. This negatively impacts productivity and growth levels. Furthermore, this shortage of workers may lead to wage inflation caused by an increase in wages. Many organizations may respond to the deficit by offering flexible working practices to attract more people to work. An increase in the aging population will result in the products being created in connections to these older adults, such as retirement homes. Lastly, the economy may be impacted due to many individuals saving more for pensions than capital investments. The reduction in the savings available for productive investment provides for low economic growth. Government reform actions to create more cost-effective programs for aging adults. Agencies of state and territorial government developed by the state’s legislature are known as State Units Aging (SUA). Nonetheless, the SUA term is not used in states since each state has created its title (Government Programs for Older Americans, n.d.). These agencies administer the Older Americans Act. This act is mainly focused on long term care service provision for older adults. Each state has created a different aging department. Some states have their services spread over several departments, while others have integrated these services. The older adults share in the services’ cost through state agencies if there are policies implemented by the states. Therefore, the older adults that are below the poverty level do not participate in cost-sharing. Some services require matching funds from states. The matching fund can be assets or dollars provided from other counties or federal programs. Various grants, such as social security administration block grants, make an enormous contribution to the matching funds. The money is then used by the states and applied to the state’s aging programs. These programs also include area agencies. The matching funds assist services such as home delivered meals, community mental health services, and in-home services. References Government Programs for Older Americans. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2, 2021, from https://www.longtermcarelink.net/eldercare/area_agencies_on_aging.htm Pettinger, T. (2019, July 20). The impact of an ageing population on the economy. https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/8950/society/impact-ageing-population-economy/ Schulz, R., Eden, J., Committee on Family Caregiving for Older Adults, Board on Health Care Services, Health and Medicine Division, & National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2016). Economic Impact of Family Caregiving. In Families Caring for an Aging America. National Academies Press (US). Sources for Income of Older Adults. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2, 2021, from http://www.pensionrights.org/publications/statistic/sources-income-older-adults-0 US Census Bureau. (2018). The Elderly and Their Sources Of Income. https://www.census.gov/library/working-papers/1990/demo/SEHSD-WP1990-04.html Economic effect on family members caring for older adults. Expenditures related to aging that are paid under these sources of income An example of elderly expenditures is purchasing items from retail stores (US Census Bureau, 2018). Most of the elderly also spend in service firms. Consequently, jobs are created as a result of the elderly spending. The spending on these local industries has a beneficial effect on the local economies. However, the elderly shop, although not as often as expected, and therefore they create fine business establishments. The elderly’s expenditures in local industries are relatively low paying to the job opportunities created as a result. But it is important to note that these sources of income make local economies more stable.