As prices rise, retirees living on a fixed income are left anxious and worried. Helen Levy, research professor at the Institute for Social Research, discussed why pandemic policies, like expanding the Child Tax Credit and unemployment benefits, didn't do much for retirees.
"Those emergency relief measures were very effective in helping families with children, but irrelevant for retirees," she said. "There isn't an immediate mechanism to help seniors deal with real-time price increases. When inflation is rising rapidly, like it is now, people who rely on Social Security don't have a whole lot of flexibility."
