Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 26, 1992 TAG: 9201280455
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: 9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
JOB DETERMINES LIFESTYLE AFTER RETIREMENT
Living on a Social Security check is not easy, according to Wilbur Jones, Mary Noel and Alice Ward.They say they're barely getting by with the help of food stamps, Meals on Wheels and food from church pantries.
But others, who retired after careers with good-paying jobs, say they're enjoying financial security despite the current economy's uncertainties.
Income while a person is working determines lifestyle after retirement, the area's pensioners are finding.
Jones, 71, a former supermarket manager and furniture-factory worker, lives with his wife, Sadie, at the Harrison School Apartments in northwest Roanoke. Retired on disability, he and his wife have been "pretty sickly," he said.
He was born in 1920, one of the "notch years" for low Social Security payments. Some people born between 1917 and 1926 receive smaller Social Security payments because of a mistake in the benefit formula that the Social Security Administration contends it corrected in 1977.
But as a result, Jones said, he "was cheated out of $250 a month." He draws $392 plus $128 in supplementary income each month. He has no checking account or savings.
Jones complained that the couple had to leave an apartment at Edinburgh Square, a federally subsidized housing project, because Sadie Jones' smoking violated state regulations.
Noel, who is 80, said she's never been behind in her rent payment in her 19 years at Lincoln Terrace. "I make it do. It's a place to keep dry and to sleep. . . . Some people are on the street," she said.
But she hasn't paid for an X-ray taken after a fall in September and she's unable to catch a bus for a trip downtown because of her arthritis. Noel cleaned homes and cooked in Roanoke and in Connecticut until she retired.
Alice and Joe Ward are not exactly living in comfort on Melrose Avenue Northwest - their gas heat is off for lack of payment and she's looking for a supplemental insurance check. They have an electric heater upstairs.
Joe Ward paints and works on houses when people have the money to pay him but that isn't happening now, he said. "I've seen the day when I could make $200 to $300 pouring cement for a porch . . . but there's nothing to do now," Ward said.
She is 61 and he's 54. Her six children are grown and working. She was a cook at the Transitional Living Center until pain in her leg forced her to quit. Before that, Alice Ward worked at Hotel Roanoke, at the former Jefferson Hospital and as a nurses' aide in homes.
"What I really miss is making money like I used to make," Joe Ward said. He predicts that the next three years are going to be tough.
They blame a big part of the troubled economy on the people who have come here from other countries. "If they'd stop bringing people from overseas, there would be more work here," Alice Ward said. Her grandmother used to say, "Clean up your own back yard before you clean up somebody else's."
Alice Ward said a Christmas food basket, a few food stamps and food she collects from churches helps them make it.
Mac McGuire took early retirement as a director over seven New York state branches for NCR Corp. He and his wife moved to Roanoke, where he works "for a small stipend" as general manager of St. Andrew's Cemetery.
His six children are out of college and working. "As long as they're OK, we're all in good shape," he said. McGuire is "getting along OK." He has a low-rate mortgage and his monthly pension check increased by $163 last year.
Jim Gormley, retired from Standard Parts Corp., said prices are up "but financially, we're about the same" because his wife inherited a gas station in Lynchburg.
And Ted Bauer, who retired from the former Eaton Corp. plant in Salem, said he's "a little ahead of the game [because] I made a lot of preparation."
His home is paid for, his pension is fixed and he said he has insurance to cover most health problems.