The poverty rate of people 65+ is the highest of all age groups and is growing, according to an AARP Foundation analysis of 2025 supplemental poverty rate data on older adults released by the U.S. Census. The report assessed Census data for adults aged 65+ along with those aged 50-64, as near-retirement poverty can portend poverty in retirement.

AARP Foundation’s review, released in September 2026, found that adults aged 50+ have had an increase in poverty rates since 2019. Adults 50-64 years old in 2019 had a population poverty rate of 10.6% compared to 12.1% in 2025. Those aged 65+ had a poverty rate of 12.7% in 2019 compared to 15.4% in 2025. In total, the population of 50+ people has a poverty rate of 13.8% with 17.2 million adults living in poverty in the year 2025.

The report uses the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) as its marker for poverty. The SPM takes government benefits, taxes, and the cost of housing, food, and utilities, etc., into account whereas another common poverty measure, the Official Poverty Measure, based on a formula developed in1963, looks only at pre-tax cash income and minimal food costs.

While adults aged 50-64 had the lowest poverty rate of all age groups in 2025, it is still very important to track these numbers as they have been increasing and thus could foretell increased poverty rates for the 65+ population in the future.

The analysis also looks at poverty rates by gender. Of both the 65+ and 50-64 age group, women had higher poverty rates than men. In 2025 alone, men 65+ had a poverty rate of 13.7% while women of this age had a poverty rate of 16.8%. In the age group of 50-64, men had a poverty rate of 11.5%, and women had a rate of 12.6%. In comparison, the report looked at poverty rates for people 18 years and younger (13.4%), and ages 18-49 (12.4%). For all ages and genders, the poverty rate had significantly dropped in the years 2020 and 2021 and have since been on the gradual incline.