She should have been drawing SS since she was 70. It would be Medicare not Medicaid and I am not sure how it would have helped since she was already being treated for cancer.

Contracting positions are hell on earth if you don't put money into savings. Even if you work 25 years you need to put money away. We really don't have a national pension system[1].

I would be curious how the whole Microsoft contracting lawsuit would apply in this case. It seems it would have some relevance.

1) and looking at how underfunded the state one are, I don't see any hope in that direction

I believe SS benefits are indexed to earnings; if she had spent 2.5 decades earning $25k per annum her ss benefits may have been quite low

it's worth noting that $25k pretax (and note $25k seems to have been a high), even at a modest tax rate, could easily fall (post income, fica, etc) to $18k post tax. Or $1500/mo.

medicare should start shortly after the 65th birthday, but people still have to buy Part B and either part C or D. afaik part B requires a typical 20% contribution; this can be quite painful if you're living / attempting to maintain a house on $1500/month

old age is no picnic, particularly in the usa, and that goes double for people who don't have significant savings

Benefits vary based on income, but they're heavily weighted toward the low end. So, a poorer person will get lower benefits, but their benefits will be a greater percentage of their income.

Doing a fast calculation, someone who earned $25k (this year, not every year with prior years taking into account how earnings change) would probably get about $14k/yr in social security. So, it isn't a huge amount of money, but it would bring it up.

> It would be Medicare not Medicaid

The two are, most assuredly, not mutually exclusive.

btw, the official federal poverty line in the us for a household of 1 is $11,490. pretty fucking shocking. [1]

[1] http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/gui...

When I see numbers like that, I really have to question how they are calculated, as that's less that $1k/month.

While it is possible to live on that, it is also possible to endure many things people in developed countries really should not have to endure...

I didn't know that but that seems reasonable. I calculated what my bare minimum living expenses would be once and came out to about 12k. Once you get down to that income level there are a lot of expenses that just go away like in my state your property taxes are reduced to effectively zero if you make less than a certain amount.

Probably not below the poverty line, if she was single. Medicaid etc have a trick where you may lose your house and savings to ask for help.