AARP Utah

CAREGIVERS GAIN NEW RIGHTS FROM DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH RULE

November marks National Family Caregivers Month, a time to recognize the more than 336,000 family caregivers in Utah who help older parents, spouses, and other loved ones live independently at home, where they want to be. The unpaid care they provide through managing medications, cooking meals, driving to appointments, performing complex medicals tasks and more is valued at $4.15 billion in Utah alone.

With the holiday giving season approaching, a new survey from the AARP Fraud Watch Network found that 70% of consumers failed a quiz about how to stay safe from common holiday scams, and many are regularly engaging in risky behaviors which could leave them at risk of being victimized by con artists.

AARP Utah was pleased to bestow the 2015 Andrus Award for Community Service to Carol Jenson. Carol is a dedicated, tireless volunteer with the Utah Food Bank, delivering food boxes to seniors every week. Though the Food Bank only asks volunteers to deliver to a maximum of three people, Carol serves 21. These people not only anticipate her arrival with food to supplement their diets but the social interaction with the pleasant and caring person who brightens up their lives. One the rare occasions when she is unable to make it, Carol makes sure that food is delivered to the people who depend on it. She spent at least 250 hours at the Food Bank last year and was honored as their Volunteer of the Year in 2014.

“After my mother had her first stroke, when her time in the rehab hospital was over, they just kicked her out and said you have to take her home today – and that was it.”

Most people have to rely on money saved over years of work to fund their retirement, and often this money is accumulated through a 401(k) plan at work or some other type of investment. Long gone are the days when a guaranteed pension gave workers financial security in retirement; today, only one in five workers has access to such a plan. This means workers have to take on the risk of investing, which is a scary proposition. Investment losses can be devastating late in life, as there aren’t decades of work ahead to replace it.

By LaRee Jones, AARP Area Coordinator

Filing a tax return isn't the most stress-free experience, and fears of audits can put people on edge. That's exactly what scam artists are counting on with widespread tax scams that are proliferating, according to an alert issued by the Internal Revenue Service this month.

Social Security Turns 80, Loved by Americans of All Ages

Social Security turns 80 on August 14, 2015 and has fulfilled the promise made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he signed it into law, that it would “protect the average citizen and his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.” It has done just that. In Utah alone, Social Security lifts 94,000 Utah retirees from poverty; 42 percent of the state’s population age 65 and older would have incomes below the poverty line without Social Security. [1]