Gary Lazowski has been working all his life, most recently as a handyman at bowling alleys in and around St. Albert. He’s still working at age 75, and not by choice — his rent went up 12 per cent last year, and he has medical expenses from a recent heart surgery. He’s also paying off loans he took out to support his children. He had savings, but lost them through several divorces.
“I’d like to retire before I drop dead,” he said, in a booming, frustrated voice, but he keeps running into roadblocks when it comes to getting assistance from the province.
“I tried to ask for help and nobody wants to help. What are us old people supposed to do?”
No more Freedom 55
Seniors tend to live on fixed incomes that don’t rise in response to inflation, said Terry Price, chair of Public Interest Alberta’s seniors task force. That’s a problem when the costs of rent, heat, and electricity surge, as they have in the last year.
“It’s just crippling their income.”
While some seniors keep working past retirement age by choice, many do so because they can’t afford to stop, said Bill VanGoder, chief advocacy and education officer with the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP). VanGoder said a retired Canadian who doesn’t have a private pension or retirement savings can collect maybe $22,000 to $25,000 a year from federal and provincial pension programs — not a lot, and far below the $35,000 in expenses the Alberta Living Wage Network says most Edmontonians incur each year.
“There is no such thing as ‘Freedom 55’ anymore,” VanGoder said, referring to a popular retirement-related advertising slogan.
A June 2022 Angus Reid survey found about 54 per cent of Canadians 55 and older had delayed or planned to delay retirement because of the rising cost of living. Some 24 per cent worried they would have to go back to work after retiring.
Cruz Pinzon, the seniors systems navigator for the St. Albert Seniors Association, said she knows of about four seniors in St. Albert who continued or returned to working past retirement due to expenses. She has also seen a roughly 20 per cent jump in the number of seniors needing financial help to get food in the last two years.
“They tell me they can pay for medicine or they can pay for food,” she said, while others fear they will lose their homes.
Modern medicine means many seniors can work for 10-15 years after age 65, VanGoder said. Some may need retraining, and up until recently federal support for retraining was restricted to those under 55. Others may face age-related discrimination from employers. The federal government also claws back up to $15,000 in seniors benefits if you work, which means you have to earn at least that much to get ahead.
“At minimum wage, it takes a lot of hours to get up to $15,000 a year,” VanGoder said.
Putting retirement in reach
Pinzon said her job is to help seniors find supports to help make ends meet. The St. Albert Seniors Association offers free rides for medical appointments, for example, while the St. Albert Food Bank can help with food donations and financial support. The challenge is sometimes social: some clients feel cultural obligations to support family members, while others are embarrassed to seek help after a life of hard work.
Price said the proposed national pharmacare program could eventually reduce medical costs for seniors and small businessowners. Rent controls and regulated utility rates could also help.
“There needs to be a concentrated effort to control costs that anyone on a fixed income is facing,” she said, as right now wages are not keeping pace with costs.
VanGoder called on the federal government to stop clawing back benefits from seniors who have to return to work in retirement, and to change the income thresholds for benefits so more seniors could access them.
Lazowski said he was just about fed up fighting for help from the government. If he could retire, he said he would like to spend more time with his 18 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
“I’d like to go somewhere with my grandkids before I drop dead.”
