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I will work until they throw dirt in my face if I'm capable.

— Robert, Age 62

Where we are

Many older people in the United States struggle to understand when or if they can retire. Difficult decisions and sometimes overwhelming complexities accessing retirement programs make for a stressful transition.

Nearly nine out of ten people aged 65 and older receive Social Security retirement benefits, and Medicare covers nearly 64 million people1. Yet—irrespective of income, education level, and race—navigating the process to claim retirement benefits and enroll in Medicare can be time-consuming, confusing, and complex for new enrollees. For example, people may have to share the same information with several government agencies, while navigating differing age-based eligibility thresholds. If the process feels too overwhelming, individuals may miss out on critical supports for which they are eligible, including financial, housing, and nutrition.

 

The number of Americans 65 and older will increase from about 57 million in 2021 to about 76 million by 2035.
One-third of adults age 65+ are economically insecure

1 Source: CMS Releases Latest Enrollment Figures for Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)

Challenge
How might we improve the retirement experience by addressing barriers to accessing programs that improve financial resiliency, streamline the user experience, and better connect people to support in their decision-making process?


Our approach

To start, we listened to people’s stories.

The Life Experience research team spoke with people nationwide about this moment in their lives and where the government process could have been simpler and more helpful. The listening sessions captured honest conversations about peoples' experiences, candid feedback on what could have worked better, and what really made a difference for them. Their stories have been combined and are represented here through illustrations. The quotes are real, but names have been changed.


Otto
Age 66
Auto mechanic
Married

Josephina
Age 65
Construction worker
Single

Joan
Age 62
Former retail employee
Divorced


 

Throughout the three-month discovery, the team collaborated across four agencies to perform primary and secondary research analysis around the approaching retirement experience. Of the 42 seniors who participated in listening sessions, diverse representation included 14 couples, 25 women, 18 persons of color, 7 widowed, and 7 high school educated.

The team spoke with:

  • 42 seniors
  • 40 Medicare and Social Security experts

Discovery insights

Framing for collective thinking about customer pain points

How might we improve access to tools and knowledge that help remove barriers to financially preparing for retirement?

How might we ease the transition to retirement by streamlining the user experience and better connecting people to accurate support to aid their decision making?

How might we provide equitable access to available resources to help seniors recover from employment setbacks and to increase financial security by ensuring individuals understand the benefits and programs available to them?

Design Phase

Designing customer-centered solutions

View progress on our milestones

In the 2024 design phase, the portfolio is running three projects:

  • Increasing access to decision-making support for older adults aims to update the Federal Resource Guide and implement a community of practice for local community-based organizations.
  • Streamlining Medicare-only enrollment will resume work on this project after a pause in 2023. 
  • Linking senior benefits programs between HUD and SSA, a new project designated in 2024, aims to pilot customer data-sharing between the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) during HUD applications, to the extent allowable, to help jumpstart housing assistance for seniors eligible for support.

The project aims to facilitate a community stakeholder-centered design process to build and test an information and outreach model to help older adults make informed retirement and healthcare decisions through connections to trusted community-based resources.

The pilot stage will include publishing a new Federal Resource Guide and distributing it through six community-based organizations and their clients. The pilot stage will also include the implementation of a Community of Practice. Both activities will include implementation and outcome evaluation activities.

Project objectives

Increase the accessibility and availability of holistic resources at existing touchpoints (such as community-based organizations); raise awareness about local resources; and reduce the burden on older adults as they are making retirement and healthcare decisions. As a result, individuals will more easily determine the correct steps for their personal situations.

Updates

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) at the Department of Health and Human Services led a pilot of two concepts: the Federal Decision Support Guide, and the Federal Forum on Serving Older Adults.

The Federal Decision Support Guide was translated into Spanish and Chinese, and lives on ACL’s Approaching Retirement Age website. The guide was created in collaboration with community-based organizations (CBOs), and then piloted with six community-based organizations (CBOs) that work directly with older adults. During the pilot, these CBOs used the guide with clients in counseling sessions. In surveys of older adults who interacted with the guide, a majority agreed that the guide reduced their level of worry about the financial and healthcare decisions they needed to make, and made the process of obtaining benefits easier to understand.

ACL also hosted three Federal Forums with presentations by Federal agency partners, and over 380 participants. After the June Forum, most respondents agreed that the Forum increased their access to materials that will assist them in helping older adults make informed financial and healthcare decisions, and a majority agreed that their participation increased their understanding of Federal programs, increased their access to materials and tools, and will reduce the time it takes to navigate Federal resources.

In the next phase of the project, ACL plans to develop an interactive website to improve accessibility of the guide resources and continue to pilot the existing materials and the redesigned website with additional CBOs.

See the 2024 project evaluation plan to learn about the project measures and methods.

Measures of success

Key outcomes:

The project’s success is defined by its ability to reduce customer navigation burden and duplicative processes, connect older adults to streamlined information available across a variety of Federal agencies and programs, and improve the ability of older adults to make informed choices that work for them.

Design phase project measures: