Chapel Hill Review

With the inflation rate at 8.5% and the economy continuing to worsen, retirees on fixed incomes are feeling the wallet squeeze worse than most and current predictions say many will be forced to find another source of income.

"Are the retirees going to un-retire?" asked Rick Santelli, an editor at CNBC Business News network. "This is going to answer it, and the answer is yes."

While rising prices are squeezing Americans' household budgets in every state, an additional strain is being placed on an estimated 56 million residents age 65 and older, The Washington Post reports. Many of these seniors rely on fixed incomes and limited savings to cover monthly costs for prolonged and unpredictable periods, according to The Post.

According to the Elder Index, a cost-of-living measure created by the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts, about half of older people who live alone are struggling to get by on less than $27,000 a year — or the bare minimum for a single renter in good health to cover expenses.

 “Any small change in circumstance — rising prices, a medical emergency — can throw an older person’s budget completely out of whack,” Jan Mutchler, director of the institute, told The Post.

On average, 15.9% of North Carolina's population is 65 or older.           

On Tuesday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for the 12 months ending in March, showing an 8.5% all-items annual increase, the largest since 1981, a span of more than 40 years.

According to the BLS, real average hourly earnings decreased 0.8% from February to March, and dropped 2.7%, seasonally adjusted, from March 2021 to March 2022.          

With the -2.7% wage inflation for March 2022, the median household income in the state of North Carolina has seen a -$1,474 year-over-year loss, bringing the current average household income to $54,602 a year, World Population Review reports.