Chasing Progress: Poverty Gap for Black and Latino Senior Citizens Grew Over Last Decade

CHI Policy Analyst Chrissy Esposito offered her insight into the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on poverty, the cost of living, and other challenges facing Coloradans 65 and older in this Denver VOICE article.

“It’s not surprising that many seniors have been able to escape poverty over the last decade,” Esposito said. “But the challenges that this population continues to face often go unnoticed once their income gets above the poverty threshold,” she told the Denver VOICE.

The article highlights data from the Census Bureau’s 5-year American Community Survey showing that Black seniors are now more than twice as likely as white seniors to live in poverty; that gap jumps to more than three times as likely for Latino seniors. 

Denver VOICE examined Denver’s poverty rate for Black and Latino seniors as part of Chasing Progress, a Colorado News Collaborative project on social, economic, and health equity among Black and Latino Coloradans.

“Aging is expensive,” Esposito said. “And we as a society seem to be underprepared for it.” 

CPR News published this article on July 28 along with a Spanish translation.