About the California Elder Index (EI)

The California Elder Index (EI) is part of a national effort to document the actual cost of basic living expenses for low-income older adults. Low-income elders depend upon public programs like Medi-Cal and cash assistance (SSI) to make ends meet. 

The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) guidelines are often used to determine income eligibility for such programs. Although consumer spending patterns and our standard of living have changed substantially since the guidelines were created in the early 1960s, the FPL itself has not been modified. Nor does the FPL take into account the local cost of living, which is a significant disadvantage in high-cost states such as California.

The result: Thousands of seniors are struggling with severe economic insecurity, having "too much" income to qualify for public assistance yet not enough income to make ends meet on their own.

In response, gerontological experts devised a more accurate measure of poverty using widely accepted and credible national and state data sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This new measure, The Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index or "Elder Index," permits policymakers and planners to understand how much income is needed to meet basic needs and to set guidelines based on locality-specific measures of the cost of living. The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development have partnered to refine and disseminate this new tool in California.

The California Elder Economic Security Standard™ Index (Elder Index) was developed to provide an evidence-based indicator of the actual basic costs faced by older adults (ages 65 and over). The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research calculates those costs and examines their implications for California.

The California Elder Index has been used to produce ground-breaking analysis and research of the economic challenges facing California’s seniors.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research's Health Equity Program analyzed the actual cost of living in California's 58 counties for the first time in 2009 in the policy brief Federal Poverty Guideline Underestimates Costs of Living for Older Persons in California. In 2010, these numbers were updated in the policy brief Older Adults Need Twice the Federal Poverty Level to Make Ends Meet in California. These calculations were based on local market rates for items such as housing, food, health care, transportation and other basic necessities.

This research found that even if the FPL guideline was doubled, it would still not be enough in most counties. The California Elder Index shows that seniors making twice the FPL still need public benefits in California to make ends meet.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research was the first to use a state's Elder Index to characterize the population with incomes below the index. The policy brief Half a Million Older Californians Living Alone Unable to Make Ends Meet provided information on the numbers and proportions of older Californians who are economically insecure by race/ethnicity, age, and gender in each county.

Among the findings: Researchers determined that nearly half a million elders living alone in California could not make ends meet, lacking sufficient income to pay for a minimum level of housing, food, health care, transportation and other basic expenses. The impact was particularly severe among elders of color.

California is the first and only state in the nation to institutionalize the Elder Index through state legislation, AB 138. AB 138 (Elder Economic Planning Act) made the Elder Index the standard for measuring seniors’ economic security in California. It requires state and local aging agencies to use the Elder Index to craft more effective programs and policies in planning for California’s growing aging population.

Use of the Elder Index by Advocates
The Elder Index can be used in myriad ways by advocates in multiple sectors to support older adults living in San Francisco and throughout California. The following are some examples of advocates in multiple sectors and their use of the Elder Index. 

Public Agencies and Local Governments use the Elder Index to plan programs and allocate resources for today's seniors and aging baby boomers in their local communities: 

• Area Agencies on Aging in California use the Elder Index in their strategic area plans, in conducting internal and external education about the costs seniors face, and in advocacy efforts to support their programs. These local area plans are the focal point of all aging services in a given community. For San Francisco’s Department of Aging and Adult Services four-year plan, see the Elder Index on p. 33-4.
• City and County of San Francisco passed Ordinance 88-09, which established a pilot program that referenced the Elder Index to set the eligibility level for a home and community-based long term care program.
   
• California legislators use the Elder Index to craft more effective state and local programs for older adults.
  • At the request of the Senate Budget Committee, the Legislative Analyst’s Office used the Elder Index to evaluate benefit levels and proposed cuts to the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) in 2008
     
• Public agencies and local governments use the Elder Index to plan programs and allocate resources for today's seniors and aging baby boomers in their local communities.
  • Area 4 Agency on Aging in Sacramento uses the Elder Index in their Assets‐Ability Matrix, a risk measurement tool to identify the relative risk of dependency that is caused by the combination of physical impairment and economic need.

Philanthropic Foundations are increasingly recognizing that realistic and accurate measures of economic need, such as the Elder Index and the Self-Sufficiency Standard, are effective ways to assess the impact of their grant making: 

• The California Wellness Foundation reported on the collective impact of their grantees’ work in advocating for the passage of AB 138 (Elder Economic Planning Act) in their 2011 Annual Report.
• The Gary and Mary West Foundation has adopted the Elder Index to define vulnerable seniors in its aging grantmaking portfolio. 
• United Ways of California uses the Elder Index for the aging component of its Real Cost Index report which member agencies use statewide.

Direct Service Providers use the Elder Index to help them design, evaluate, and expand programs: 

• National Council on Aging’s Economic Security Initiative tracks older adults’ progress toward the goal of economic stability using the Elder Index. 
• Senior Community Centers in San Diego have used the Elder Index to quantify to investors the impact of their affordable housing and nutrition programs. 
• Aging Services Collaborative in Santa Clara County uses the Elder Index in their policy agenda to increase the number of affordable housing units in the county.

Advocates use the Elder Index to more effectively make the case for policy change: 

• Justice in Aging, Western Center on Law and Poverty, California Association of Food Banks, Alameda County Senior Services Coalition, Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, and others use the Elder Index to advocate for funding for vulnerable seniors. 
• St. Mary’s Center and others advocated that the state and federal government adopt the Elder Index instead of the Federal Poverty Guidelines in determining eligibility for public programs.
• The California Budget and Policy Center used the Elder Index as a “basic budget” when testifying before the California Senate Budget Committee in 2018 to explain the need to increase the state supplement to SSI.
   
• Advocates also use the Elder Index to make the case for the importance of senior support programs to policymakers, the press, and community stakeholders. For example, the California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) advocated for the state adoption of the Elder Index through legislation.

Presentations and Media

Living Below the Line: Economic Insecurity and Older Americans, Insecurity in the States 2019
November 2019
UMass Boston Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging

Below is a list of our funders since 2008.