The Balance Sheet Nobody Reads Aloud
Put plainly: much of what gets delivered as community service in this county is delivered by older adults working for free. Pima Council on Aging receives public funding, and we are grateful for it. But public dollars alone do not cover the coordination, the transportation, and the screening that turn 5.76 million volunteer hours into meals, rides, and hours at a bedside. None of it is secure. Ten percent of residents 65 and older, live below the poverty line. One in four older homeowners is cost-burdened; that is 31,553 households doing hard arithmetic at the kitchen table each month. Both things are true at once. The contribution is enormous, and it is at risk. So, when you hear aging services described as charity, something nice to fund if money is left over, you are entitled to correct the record. You are 28 percent of this county’s household income. You are 41.9 percent of its owner-occupied homes. You are 71,702 workers and 87,400 volunteers. That is not a request for sympathy. It is a balance sheet. If you know someone who signs checks at a bank, a hospital, a utility, or a grocery chain, tell them what you just read. The case is not hard to make. It mostly needs someone willing to say it out loud. ◆ Figures: American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates; Social Security Administration county data, December 2023; AmeriCorps civic life data; Independent Sector volunteer valuation. Age bands 60+ and 65+ are reported separately and are not interchangeable.
store on Grant and the pharmacy on Speedway. If you were one of those households, you already know it from the inside. What the data adds is that you were one of nearly 49,000. The contributions do not stop at spending. More than 71,000 residents 60 and older are on payrolls right now. Older homeowners occupy 126,061 owner-occupied homes, 41.9 percent of all of them in the county. And roughly 87,400 of us volunteer, contributing an estimated 5.76 million hours a year, valued near $208 million. Another 2,999 grandparents 60 and older are raising their own grandchildren.
By Debbie Sisco Rich, Chief Operating Officer
I want to share some numbers with you, because I think you have been undersold on your own worth. There are 308,787 of us in Pima County who are 60 or older. Nearly three in ten residents. And households headed by someone 65 or uphold an estimated $12.6 billion in annual income, roughly 28 percent of every household dollar in this county. Twenty-eight percent. That is not a service population. That is a market. Here is the part I find most striking. Every month, $456.1 million in Social Security benefits arrive in this county, spread across 251,065 beneficiaries. Unlike almost any other income here, it does not stop. Not in a downturn, not in a soft tourist season, not when an employer decides Tucson was a mistake. When times get hard in Pima County, the people keeping the pharmacy, the grocery store, and the corner restaurant open are dispro- portionately the ones being offered the early table by the kitchen. You have likely never thought of yourself as an economic stabilizer. You are one. Which is why the last ten months should concern all of us. Between July 2025 and April 2026, this county lost 48,804 SNAP households, an estimated $178 million a year in food funding. That money did not shift to another line in a budget. It left the grocery
28 % of Pima County adults are 60 and over
You are 28 percent of this county’s household income. You are 41.9 percent of its owner-occupied homes. You are 71,702 workers and 87,400 volunteers.
September & October 2026, Never Too Late | Page 5
Pima Council on Aging
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