Half a million older Californians living alone unable to make ends meet.

early half a million elders (495,000) living alone in California in 2007 could not make ends meet—lacking sufficient income to pay for a minimum level of housing, food, health care, transportation and other basic expenses, as measured by the Elder Economic Security StandardTM Index (Elder Index). More than one-fourth of Californians age 65 and older lived alone in 2007; among them, half (50.9%) had incomes below the Elder Index (Exhibit 1). N