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Marshall closed her fledgling consulting firm and returned home to Maryland. She became legal guardian for her mother and aunt. She found her mother’s finances in disarray, declared
bankruptcy for her mom and devoted her life to full-time caregiving. Her healthy 401(k), her mother’s government pension and her aunt’s disability income allowed them to live together in
Marshall’s townhouse near Fort Meade. But 14 years of caregiving depleted her savings. Dale Marshall holds a photo of her mother, Gloria Marshall. Greg Kahn AT AGE 56, she tried to get
another information technology job, but recruiters said her skills were out-of-date. “They wanted more certification,” says Marshall, who couldn’t afford the $23,000 for additional
training. Instead, she found work as a receptionist for a construction company at much lower pay. She stayed until 65, then sold her townhouse and built a house on her family’s land to be
near her cousins, about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C. After her mortgage, construction loans, insurance, utilities and prescriptions, Marshall says, she’s usually left with $240 for
groceries and gas but sometimes has surprise expenses. Last month, her doctor changed her diabetes medicine. The cost increased by $70, and after paying for all her medications, she had $95
remaining. AT AGE 66, Marshall is looking for part-time work. At job fairs she sees plenty of people her age, creating a lot of competition in her rural county. “At my age, where I think I
should have two or three incomes, all my income is just Social Security,” she says. “So it’s kind of sad and depressing sometimes.” She wants to work as a home health aide, saying her
passion is caregiving. She has two godchildren who will help take care of her one day but worries that without Social Security she would lose her independence and her house. “It’s my biggest
fear that I’m not going to have any money left and I’m going to live in a shelter,” Marshall says. “I don’t mean a homeless shelter. I mean a lean-to!” Because she worked in the tech
industry, she was very concerned when she heard the U.S. DOGE Service, an acronym that stands for the Department of Government Efficiency but is not a Cabinet-level department established by
Congress, had access to Social Security records. “That’s very personal information between me and the Social Security Administration,” Marshall says. When she worked at Bank One to launch
Disney’s Visa card, “I had to pass a background check and be bonded to get access to personal data.” She didn’t see the same measures in place when DOGE team members examined confidential
Social Security databases. She worries that personal data will be leaked and she and others may become victims of identity theft. ENTREPRENEUR HAD NO TIME OR ENERGY LEFT TO REBUILD Photo by
Matt Nager CAROLYN ANTELL, 77, GOLDEN, COLORADO * CAREER: Former interior designer * RETIREMENT: 62 * MONTHLY INCOME: $1,100 from Social Security Carolyn Antell’s interior design business
couldn’t survive the 2008–09 Great Recession, and at 62 she didn’t have time to wait for a rebound. “There were a lot of tears, and there was a lot of realization that ‘Honey, you’re going
to have to live on your Social Security,’ ” says Antell, who estimates she furnished about 700 weekend and vacation homes in New Hampshire and Colorado over her 40-year career. She’d
weathered previous economic downturns in her 30s and 40s, divorced two husbands and raised three children. In the beginning, Carolyn supplemented her then-$800 monthly check by applying for
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and holding down six part-time jobs, including walking dogs, watering lawns and working at a Lane Bryant clothing store. AS A SECOND
CAREER, she went back to school, earned certified nursing assistant credentials and started a private care company helping older adults. After four years on a waiting list, she was able to
move into subsidized housing. “There were a lot of tears … a lot of realizations that ‘Honey, you’re going to have to live on your Social Security.’ ” — Carolyn Antell, Golden, Colorado,
after her business went under The rent and utilities for her 560-square-foot, one-bedroom apartment about 12 miles west of Denver is set at 30 percent of her income. The building is drafty
in winter and can reach 90 degrees in summer, but Antell says she’s grateful to have a home she can afford. Her fixed rent and Social Security allow her to pay for a mobile phone, cat food
and repairs to her 2009 Subaru. SPINAL STENOSIS, which can pinch the spinal cord and nerves that branch from it, means she now uses a walker to get down to the river a block from her
building and to a community center next door. She likes to drive to a nearby reservoir to watch bald eagles raise their young. “A lot of people don’t even understand how Social Security
began or [how it] works. Every paycheck you’ve ever made since you started working is … taxed for it,” Antell says. In the past four months, Antell says, she’s been bombarded with stories
about the SSA — staff cuts at field offices, phone identification being taken away, then rolled back. “We hear they’re going to cut back, but we don’t know how much,” she says. “I can’t take
the level of fear.” She wants her friends and her state’s representatives to know how crucial it is to people like her who can’t work enough to afford rent on their own. Antell estimates
she makes about 25 calls a day. “I’m at war,” she says. “This is a battle, and it is exhausting.” SOCIAL SECURITY ALLOWS A SPOUSE TO FOCUS ON CAREGIVING AARP Studios SUZANNE, 79, AND SUSAN
LEEDY, 76, MCGAHEYSVILLE, VIRGINIA * CAREERS: Former real estate agent, registered nurse * RETIREMENT: 62 and 58 * MONTHLY INCOME: $4,800 from Social Security In 2011, partners Suzanne and
Susan Leedy needed to rethink their lives. Susan, then 58, had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and could no longer work as a nurse but could get Social Security disability benefits.
Suzanne, a real estate agent, wanted to retire and at 62 could collect her Social Security retirement. Most of their savings had gone to medications. One alone cost $1,700 a month. MOVE
SAVES MONEY. So they sold their house in Alexandria, Virginia, across the river from Washington, D.C., and found a less expensive community in the Shenandoah Valley about 100 miles
southwest, where their combined income of $4,800 a month, supplemented with money from Suzanne’s part-time job renting time-shares, would give them a comfortable life. Then, in December 2020
as Susan was recovering from knee replacement surgery, she had a stroke. A dementia diagnosis soon followed.