Arizona, a state in the southwestern region of the United States, is also part of the Western United States and of the Mountain West states. It is the sixth largest by land area and the 15th most populous of the 50 states. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Arizona was 6,626,624 on July 1, 2013, a 3.5 percent increase since the 2010 US Census. At the same time, in 2010, there were 1,154,688 persons age 60 and older, or 18.5 percent of the population of Arizona. Seven states are going to have more than 2 million of seniors in 2030, including Arizona with 2.4 million (AoA, 2011b). Arizona is one of the states with the greatest projected population growth of those age 85 and older from 2010 to 2030, with 119 percent growth (other states with the highest projections include Alaska (+217 percent) and Nevada (+147 percent).
In general, the Sunbelt has seen substantial population growth since the 1960s due to an influx of people seeking a warm and sunny climate (air conditioning has made it easier for people to deal with the summertime heat in the region), a surge in retiring baby boomers, and growing economic opportunities. Arizona, Florida, and Nevada were the three most
attractive states for boomers between 2000 and 2007 and have been called "Retirement States". For example, between 1970 and 1980, the number of Arizona residents aged 65 and older increased 90 percent. Since 1995, Arizona’s senior population has increased by more than 20 percent (Smith, 2002). Sunbelt states that attracted large in-flows of baby boomers during the 2000s have seen the number of new migrants decline in recent years.
Similarly, sending states and communities that were losing baby boomers have seen the out-flow taper off (Mather and Jarosz, 2013). Nevertheless, the number of seniors keeps growing in Arizona both because of the local aging population and retirement migration.
National demographic trends are evident in Arizona, with people living longer, healthier lives and spending more time in retirement. The baby boomer cohort in Arizona also follows national trends, including the following (DAAS, 2014, DHS, 2014) (Hall and Zautra, 2010):
• Baby boomers are generally more educated than past generations.
• Older adults will be more racially and culturally diverse, with corresponding increases in health and cost burdens posed by lifelong health disparities.
• A greater number of older adults will live on their own due to a higher number of divorced and never-married people.
• Boomers, particularly women, will find themselves continuing to provide care for their much older parents even as they themselves age and move to fixed incomes.
• A growing number of grandparents will be caring for their grandchildren.
Figure. 5.1 Projected growth of number and percentage of older adults in Arizona in 2000-2030. Source: own compilation based on U.S. Census Bureau, 2000b, Administration on Aging (AoA), 2011b
• Boomers expect to have a long retirement without much change in lifestyle.
• More people worry about the dollars needed to support others and themselves with age and will rely on savings and Social Security for retirement.
• Boomers will favor urban/suburban areas and a majority of Arizonans say they expect to age in place.
• Work and service will be part of older lifestyles: while workers over 55 represented 17 percent of the workforce in 2010, they are projected to be 19 percent of the workforce by 2050.
• Older adults will have an unprecedented impact on local, regional and statewide elections and policies.
More than 40 percent of Arizona households are in a persistent state of financial insecurity.
Shifting to financial security, an estimated 43.5 percent of U.S. households are considered financially insecure, as they do not have a basic safety net to weather emergencies or prepare for future needs, such as a child’s education or homeownership, according to the 2014 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard by the Corporation for Enterprise Development. These numbers are higher in Arizona, with 45.7 percent of all Arizona households – and an alarming 67.4 percent of Arizona households with people of color – at high risk of falling into abject poverty. In 2013, 30 percent of Arizona households were considered financially insecure, and are therefore considered asset poor. The asset poverty rate for households of color was double that of white households(Koppell et al., 2014).
Arizonans received Social Security benefits totaling $16.8 billion in 2013, an amount equivalent to 6.9 percent of the state’s total personal income. Social Security provided benefits to 816,833 retired workers in Arizona in 2013, two-thirds (69.5 percent) of bene-ficiaries. The typical benefit received by a retired worker in Arizona was $15,935 in 2013 (Social Security Administration (SSA), 2014). According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security lifted 295,000 Arizonans aged 65 or older out of poverty in 2012.
Without Social Security, the elderly poverty rate in Arizona would have increased from 1 in 12 (8.5 percent) to 3 in 7 (42.4 percent)(Water et al., 2013).
As explained in Chapter 2, the official poverty measure is outdated and does not accu-rately reflect individuals’ incomes or financial resources. The Census Bureau has reported that poverty rates among the elderly (those ages 65 and older) are higher under the supple-mental poverty measure (15 percent) than under the official poverty measure (9 percent), which is due in large part to the fact that the former deducts health expenses from income (Short, 2012). Arizona is one of 10 states (including Washington D.C.) where at least half of seniors have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line based on the supplemental measure (the rate is 50 percent in Arizona) (Levinson et al., 2013).
As mentioned previously, most elders receive Social Security benefits. The Elder Index calculates the percentage of living costs covered by Social Security benefits by taking local costs of living and local average Social Security benefits into consideration. An Elder Index score is one indicator of economic security, where a lower percentage indicates a greater discrepancy between living costs and Social Security benefits. For single elder renters in Arizona, the Elder Index was $21,540 in 2011, and the average annual Social Security benefit was $14,403. This means that the average Social Security benefit in Arizona covers only 67 percent of living costs for single elder renters (The Gerontology Institute, 2012).
Arizonans reside primarily in the urban areas of Maricopa and Pima counties. More than half (around 58 percent) of the population of Arizona live in cities of 100,000 or more inhabitants, the highest proportion of any of the 50 states. The center of population in Arizona is located in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is the largest city. Pima County, which includes the Greater Tucson area, is home to 15 percent of the population, and the remaining 25 percent of the population reside in the balance of the state. Therefore, 80 percent of the growth in the older population between 2000 and 2030 is expected to occur in these regions, mainly in the Phoenix MSA.