Dan and Grace Porte lost their jobs at Target when the Covid pandemic began. The couple in their mid-80s had used the income to supplement social security.
Dan and Grace Porte
Dan and Grace Porte have worked together for decades.
In the 1970s they started a paint and wallpaper business. Then, after the real estate bubble burst during the Great Recession, the couple supplied cars for Enterprise. Five years later, they set up customer returns at Target.
But the pandemic ended that. Now, in their mid-80s, the Portes are unemployed.
You are one of the thousands of elderly Americans who have been ousted from work since the spring. The Covid recession has put many of them out of action for long stretches – making it harder to find another job at an age when employers are already less inclined to hire them.
The Portes who live in Richmond, Virginia hold no grudges. In fact, losing their jobs likely saved their lives due to the increased risk of Covid, they said. And the ordeal has brought them closer together even after 63 years of marriage.
But they’d like to go back to work if they think it’s safe. They miss their co-workers, the camaraderie, meeting new people, the exercise. Money was scarce even without the additional income.
“I really enjoyed visiting the people in the store, doing our jobs, and getting away from the house,” said 86-year-old Dan.
“We’d still be working if someone let us,” he added. “When you’re that age, people don’t look at you for work.”
Long-term unemployment
According to an analysis of federal data released by the AARP Public Policy Institute, two million people over the age of 55 were unemployed in January. They make up about 1 in 5 unemployed Americans.
Like the Portes, many unemployed seniors are “long-term unemployed” which means they have been unemployed for at least six months, which poses a higher financial risk. Half of unemployed workers over the age of 55 were long-term unemployed in January, compared with 35% of younger adults, according to AARP.
So far, Dan and Grace have been able to make ends meet with social security. But money is tight.
They relied on jobs at Target, where they worked four days a week to supplement social security benefits. The retailer put the couple on leave in March but kept them on the payroll and even increased their salary to $ 15 an hour, an increase of $ 2. They immediately lost their jobs at the end of April.
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Unemployment benefits helped for a while, but ran out in September. They also have no retirement assets to fall back on – a broker put their nest egg into an investment that went bankrupt in the 2008 financial crisis and cost about $ 240,000.
“There it went,” said Grace, 85, of the money. “I said, ‘I think maybe we should get a job’ when Dan asked what we should do.”
Jobs galore
The duo has an active and colorful professional history.
Grace, born in 1935, grew up in rural Nebraska “about eight miles from nowhere” and worked in a post office and drug store when she was young. She and Dan met in Omaha in their early twenties, where he was stationed at an air force base.
At this point Dan had already served as a radar and radio technician in Tachikawa, Japan, on the outskirts of Tokyo during the Korean War. As a star athlete, he played for the Red Devils baseball team, which won the Far East Air Force Championship during his tenure. The roster even played against the New York Yankees at a time when legends like Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford were on the roster. (They lost 16-2.)
“These guys were good,” said Dan, a pitcher and midfielder. “You fucking beat us up.”
The red Tachikawa devils. Dan Porte is pictured in the first row, 2nd from the left.
And porte
He proposed to Grace on Christmas Day 1957. They married in April and he was released the next day, completing eight years of service.
The couple returned to Baltimore, Dan’s hometown, before moving to Richmond in 1966 when Dan became assistant manager at the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. Sometimes he was hired to go to colleges to distribute free cigarettes at lunch, a task he disliked at all and which led to his departure.
The front page of the Tachikawa Air Base newspaper on August 27, 1955.
Source: Dan Porte
The couple then started their own company, Proud Performance, after the neighbors began asking for help with the renovation. A few decades later, the duo delivered cars to various Enterprise locations. Pickup trucks caused some problems for Grace because of their size – at 4’8 “she had to sit on phone books to see the road.
At Target, the Octogenarians who replenished shelves with returned items were by far the oldest workers, they said.
“Our whole life has been exciting,” she said. “There was a lot of fun.”
‘It’s tight’
The retailer had to cut its positions when customer returns dried up.
With no part-time income, the couple can get by on combined social security benefits of around $ 1,700 per month. A third of that – around $ 570 – goes to a health plan to supplement Medicare.
“It’s tight,” said Grace. “We are very economical.”
According to Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president of the AARP Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organization, many adults rely on wages to fill budget gaps, a problem exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Jobs are often more difficult to find after long periods of unemployment and those who do find work generally do so at lower wages, according to labor economists. It’s especially difficult for older workers because of potential age discrimination, Ryerson said, or other factors like obsolete job skills.
“Older poverty, or the risk of it, is a problem that so often goes hidden from view,” she said. “Longer lives will mean poorer lives for far too many people.”
Meanwhile, the cost of seniors is rising faster than other age groups as the prices of medical and other services often used by the elderly are inflated.
Unemployment benefit
The Portes received unemployment benefits from May to September. You may be eligible for extra weeks of benefits from a $ 900 billion aid package signed by former President Donald Trump in December.
“The big help has been the incentive we got,” Grace said of a $ 600 a week increase in CARES Act benefits that ended in July. “It did not take long.”
National data do not divide aid recipients by age, but country-level data is meaningful. In California, as of mid-March, more than half of all seniors in the state’s workforce – approximately 617,000 people between the ages of 65 and 85 – have applied for unemployment benefits, according to the California Policy Lab.
The only group with a larger proportion were 16 to 24 year olds. Almost two-thirds of their workforce applied for benefits during the pandemic. According to Till von Wachter, economist and director of the California Policy Lab, young people typically work in industries hardest hit by the pandemic, such as retail, hospitality, and food services.
In contrast, most seniors in the Golden State applied for benefits under the federal pandemic unemployment assistance program, suggesting they have a greater proportion of small business owners and older people are afraid of increased risks of Covid in the workplace, said from Wachter.
Last week Dan and Grace stopped by the local destination and their old manager asked if they wanted to go back to work. They were flattered, but refused (for the time being) due to Covid risks.
Older poverty or the risk of it is a problem that so often remains hidden from view. Longer lives will mean poorer lives for far too many people.
Lisa Marsh Ryerson
President of the AARP Foundation
The couple exudes optimism and positivity, and in some ways they are grateful for what happened.
“It just brings us closer together,” Dan said of her financial challenges. “We sit and talk, go over these things and try to figure out how to deal with them.”
“We actually have something to discuss,” repeated Grace.
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