PA baby boomers choose to age at home
March 10, 2011
With the third-largest percentage of residents over the age of 65 of any state in the country, Pennsylvania is becoming one of the front-runners in the ways that the nation will start to accommodate baby boomers, according to Bloomberg.
And, perhaps surprisingly, many of these older adults are opting to stay at home during their golden years instead of packing up and leaving for sunnier shores.
“I don’t think I could ever leave Pennsylvania,” 59-year old Dolores Pohl told the news source. “We feel lucky to live in a state that provides good services for its older folks.”
Some of these benefits include a cheaper automobile registration fee and a $250 tax rebate each year. Additionally, retirees without an earned income don’t pay any Pennsylvania state income taxes.
Many boomers in the keystone state are choosing to stay and modify their homes accordingly.
“You fix up your home and you don’t want to leave it,” 73-year-old Massie Gibson told the news provider.
One helpful renovation for older adults looking to age at home could be a personal emergency response system. These medical alert systems can be used to instantly send a medical alert to doctors in the case of an unexpected health condition.
HealthInAging.org reports that, by 2030, approximately one in five Americans will be age 65 or over.
