← HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
HerMoney with Jean Chatzky
Your Money Map Replay: Is Retirement Really in Crisis? What The Data Says with Andrew Biggs
00:33:00
The real story behind the headlines.
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- [00:00]
A
Before we dive into today's episode, I want to tell you about a completely free webinar we're hosting to help you close out the year with clarity and confidence around your money. Join us on October 8th at 8pm Eastern for a powerful, no cost session designed to help you build better financial habits right now. Why wait till January to get serious about your money goals? We'll walk you through practical, actionable steps to take control of your money and set yourself up for success before the ball drops on 2025. You'll leave with a clear plan to stay focused, build momentum and head into 2026 feeling confident and in control. Register now at portal.financefix.com and click Register on the free webinar.
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B
First ask yourself do we have a retirement crisis today? Among retirees today, is there really a crisis of inadequate incomes? Again, I'll say highest incomes on record, not just at the mean, which is skewed by outliers, but at the median, the middle distribution. You look down in say, the 25th percentile record highs.
- [01:21]
A
Hey everyone, welcome to Her Money. I'm Jean Chatky. If you have been paying attention to the headlines lately, you've probably heard that retirement in America is broken, that we're not saving nearly enough, and that most of us are headed for trouble. It's a message that has been repeated so often it feels like a fact. But Andrew Biggs, my guest on a recent episode of youf Money Map, the show I host for the alliance for Lifetime Income, says that story isn't quite right. Andrew is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He's author of a brand new book called the Real Retirement Crisis why almost everything you know about the US Retirement system is wrong. He spent years inside the Social Security Administration and the White House, and he's here to share what the numbers actually say about how we're doing when it comes to retirement readiness. Spoiler alert. It's not all doom and gloom. We dig into why today's retirees are better off than we think, what's really going on with Social Security and Medicare, and how a few smart decisions like working a little longer or thinking differently about lifetime income can make a big difference. It's an honest, eye opening conversation and one that might just change the way you think about your own financial future. As always, for more tools and guidance on how to plan for retirement income you can't outlive, head to protectedincome.org and while you're there, don't forget to sign up for the newsletter@protectedincome.org subscribe here's my conversation with Andrew Biggs. You know what doesn't belong in your summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill While you're planning beach trips, barbecues or long weekends with your girlfriends, your phone plan shouldn't be the thing that's draining your wallet. That's where Mint Mobile comes in. For a limited time, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for just $15 a month. That means you get the coverage and speed you're used to on the nation's largest 5G network, but for way less this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month. That mintmobile.community that's mintmobile.community upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 GB on the unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Cozy Earth's pajamas and blankets are so soft, so breathable and so cute that you'll start planning your evenings around them. These are not your average loungewear pieces. Their bamboo stretch knit pajamas have a lightweight feel, a beautiful drape, and they actually sleep cooler than cotton, which means you stay at just the right temperature through the night. And here's the best part. Cozy Earth stands behind every product. Their apparel is backed by a lifetime guarantee and their blankets come with a 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty so you can truly rest easy. Go to cozyearth.com and use code HERMONEY at checkout for up to 40% off your new favorite pajama set and blanket. That's Cozy Earth doll code Hermoney. And if you get a post purchase survey, do me a favor. Let them know you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Elevate your downtime with Cozy Earth. Andrew, welcome to the show.
- [05:17]
B
Thanks very much for having me, Jean. It's great to be with you.
- [05:19]
C
So Andrew, many of our viewers often hear that the US Retirement system is in crisis. In your new book, you argue that narrative is exaggerated, that maybe it's even wrong.
- [05:31]
A
Can you unpack that for us a bit?
- [05:34]
B
Sure. I mean, it's very common to read that Americans aren't saving enough for retirement. The retirement is getting worse. Do we even face a retirement crisis? When you look at the data though, they tell a very different story. For instance, retirement plan coverage. Today, the opportunity to have a retirement plan at your workplace much higher today than back in the past. More Americans are participating in the retirement plans because we use things like automatic enrollment. If we look at data on how much people are contributing to their plans as a percentage of their salaries, much higher today than in the past retirement plan assets. Today, the total amount of retirement savings are something like six times higher than what we had back in the 1970s when traditional pensions still roamed the earth. And it's not just savings, we're also working longer. Back in the 1990s, labor force participation at older ages was at record lows. And, and people ask, can Americans work longer? Can we delay retirement? Today we know the answer to that. Labor force participation for 55 to 64 year olds is the highest it's ever been. That means more, more time to work, more time to build savings. On top of that, we're claiming Social Security two years later on average today than we did back in the 1990s. The average person today claims Social Security at 65 compared to back in the 90s. That's an extra 12, 13% of your Social Security benefit that lasts for as long as you live. All of this has resulted in retires today having the highest incomes on record, in fact, the highest incomes in the developed world, according to the oecd. So the data really tell a story that is very different than what you'll read in the newspaper. And it's really a much more encouraging story.
- [07:18]
C
I agree with everything you said. I do think there are sections of the population, people who work for small companies, people who work for themselves, that have been traditionally shut out of the 401k system. But the one thing that you didn't mention in all of that good news was longevity, which is when it comes to paying for a retirement that's going to last a longer period of time, I guess the, it's not bad news, but it's definitely a question mark.
- [07:48]
B
Oh, sure, Americans are living longer on average. Not everyone is. And that's something we, we have to be mindful of. Americans are living longer on average. And so your retirement saving have to last longer. And that's definitely a factor. But the fact that we're working longer on average and that we're saving more makes up for that. So it's, you know, there's a variety of different things going on here, but Americans are responding by saving more than they did in the past. That's, the data are clear on that.
- [08:15]
C
Is saving more the same as saving enough? We often see headlines that tell us that Americans are are not saving enough. And I think when, at least to me, and I read these pretty carefully, when they are broken down to look at mean retirement savings rather than average retirement savings because the average is so skewed by the wealthy, it does cause me to worry that there are a good chunk of people who are not saving enough.
- [08:46]
B
Well, here's a way. As a retirement researcher, trying to determine how much is enough is an incredibly complex thing. And everybody will be honest in the field that it's a very sort of imprecise measure. But here's a simple way of looking at it. First, ask yourself, do we have a retirement crisis today? Among retirees today, is there really a crisis of inadequate incomes? Again, I'll say highest incomes on record, not just at the mean, which is skewed by outliers, but at the median, the middle distribution, you look down in, say, the 25th percentile, record highs. If you look at poverty rates, the Census Bureau just published some data recently that show the risk of falling into poverty and old age has dropped by one third since 1990 alone. So we have. And you can simply ask retire, as you Gallup regularly ask, do you have enough money not just to survive, but to, quote, live comfortably? 80% or 8 out of 10 retirees say yes. Only about 5% of retirees say they're finding it difficult to get by. That's from a Federal Reserve survey. So really, there's no plausible argument to face retirement crisis today. And then you have to say, okay, are workers today saving more for retirement than today's retirees did back when they were working? And there's a variety of ways of looking at it. I did a study a couple of years ago, and what I found is retirement savings, including retirement accounts, but also the amounts that people have accrued under traditional pensions. You put those together, they are at record high levels in every age group, every income group, every educational group, and every racial or ethnic group. So if today's retirees don't face a crisis and we're saving more for retirement today than we did in the past, it just, at the gut check level, it just, we're not likely to have a retirement crisis in the future. When I was at the Social Security Administration, we worked with very sophisticated models to project what seniors will have in future. And really what got me thinking about this, this narrative of the retirement crisis is the, you know, the career employees at SSA said, look, we're just not projecting what these people are claiming that we're going to get. They think the, you know, the the retirement income adequacy for future retireers will be pretty much the same as it is today, which is good, but that poverty in old age is going to decline. And so it's. It doesn't mean we don't have challenges, doesn't mean we, you shouldn't work to improve things. We should in every area of public policy. But the idea that we face some unique crisis in our retirement system when our retiree incomes are record highs, it just strikes me as scaremongering.
- [11:26]
C
I think that the EBRI study that every year, the Retirement Confidence Study, that every year takes the pulse of people who are pre retirement and asks if they're afraid of not having enough money in retirement and then compares it to people who are actually in retirement. You do see the people who are actually in retirement say they are feeling better than those who are not quite there yet. Which I think means there is some additional fear in the system that maybe there should not be there. You write in the book though that if there is a crisis, it's not with people saving through 401ks or IRAs or, or pensions. It's almost entirely on the government side. What do you mean by that?
- [12:11]
B
Well, this is true in the United States. It's true really in every country around the world. If you look at what are called the retirement savings gap, the amount of extra money you need for people to have secure retirements, most of that comes from the government side. If you look at Social Security, it is underfunded by $25 trillion. And I've worked on the issue, but for four decades, Congress has effectively ignored the just kick the can down the road. I think plausible numbers for the retirement savings gap on the household side of what Americans themselves should be saving a couple of trillion dollars, which is when you think the total retirement savings we have are in the tens of trillions, is really not that much. So it's overwhelmingly the gap is on the government side. And this stands to reason that politicians like to promise things, they don't like to make you pay for them. But for all the failings people have in preparing for retirement, on their financial illiteracy and problems like that, people know that if I save more today, I will have more in the future. The incentives are in the right direction with programs like Social Security, also state and local government employee pensions, things like that, there's always an incentive to put it off, always an incentive to promise without paying for it. So in the book I look at a range of estimates of the retirement savings gap among households of how much they should be saving for retirement. Even the worst case projections, which are, to be honest, not very plausible. But even those worst case projections are dwarfed by the size of the Social Security funding gap. So the data are really very clear. The problem, the real retirement crisis, as it were, is not with Americans not saving for much retirement on their own. It's really with government failing to fix Social Security, failing to fix Medicare, failing to fix state local government pensions. That's where the problem really lies.
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C
You've spent time at the Social Security administration in the government. How do you think this crisis shakes out? I mean, I think people get nervous every time we get a new report that says the year is getting closer. At which point the trust fund can only pay out what it takes in.
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B
Well, let me put it this way. I mean, despite my youthful appearance, I will turn 65 in the mid-2030s, right when Social Security's trust fund is projected to run dry. So I've timed things very well. Honestly, I don't lose sleep over it. And the reason is that technically speaking, when Social Security's trust fund runs dry, the system can only pay the benefits it can afford to pay through payroll taxes, which we mean about a 20% benefit cut. The reality is that Congress isn't going to allow that kind of cut overnight. It's probably not going to allow that kind of cut at all. But it is particularly not going to allow that kind of cut for the people who need Social Security the most. If you're somebody for whom it makes a real difference whether your Social Security benefit is cut by 10 or 20%, probably you're not going to get much of a cut at all. So it's, we do have to make changes over the long term. And I'll be honest, I in the book, I argue that the high income retirees over time should get lower benefits benefits than they get today. I mean, the maximum Social Security benefit today for a couple is about $100,000. No other country on earth pays that. So, you know, we should fix that. But the idea that overnight we're going to cut benefits for low income retirees by 20% and throw millions of people into poverty, that's not going to happen. The real problem on Social Security, to be honest, isn't going to be for the retirees. It's really for the federal budget. They have to figure out how we're going to pay for all these additional benefit costs while doing the other things you want government to do while trying to get debt under control and for retirees Middle class, upper income retirees, they need to think about both sides of the equation in the sense that, no, they don't want their Social Security benefits to be cut. They also don't want the federal government to run into a debt crisis or a fiscal crisis where interest rates rise, the stock market drops, because that's going to affect your other investments. So we do need a balanced. It's not just enough to say, oh, don't cut my benefits, because if that's going to bankrupt the federal government, then that's a problem for you too. So we need a balanced approach to this.
- [16:37]
C
You mentioned Medicare and it's another problematic piece of the puzzle. How do you think that component gets fixed?
- [16:48]
B
Health care is an incredibly complex issue. Medicare is a monster player in our health care market, but it's also influenced by the rest of the market. I'll put it to you this way. In terms of the Medicare problem, what we think about it is we think, well, we have demographics, more retirees, and then we think of like health care inflation, we'll rise in prices for health care. It's actually more subtle than that. We do more retirees and we have health care inflation. Medicare could afford to pay that. The real thing that tips it over the edge is what's called health care intensity. It's not the cost of your MRI or the cost your drug. It's the fact that we're using more and more and more of these things and we do simply use more health care than people in other countries do. So at some point we have to decide, do we want to scale that back or do we want to pay for it? Those are the choices we face. There's no magic to this, but again, as with Social Security, there's always the temptation to put it off. But one thing I do touch on in the book, and this is a really frightening thing for people thinking about health care and retirement. How much is it going to cost me? What if I go into nursing home? It's almost too detailed a topic to get into, you know, and we could put an entire episode on this. But what I'll say is the amount of information out there about retiree healthcare and nursing home costs, the frightening stuff is almost always misleading.
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C
Let's actually get why a little bit. Because we have a recent survey from the alliance for Lifetime Income, our PRIP survey and we call it, and it shows well over half of pre retirees and retirees are not only fearful of outliving their savings in retirement, but inflation and health care are the biggest reason and 60% say that health care is their top concern. And I'm sure they are including long term care in that number.
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B
Sure. Health care drives people's perceptions of retirement. If you look at like EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey that you mentioned, there's always different factors that people are asked about. The core issue is if you're confident that Medicare is not going to go bankrupt, you're pretty confident in retirement overall. If you think Medicare is going to go under, it doesn't matter all the other things, you're going to be scared. So that really does concern people. As with Social Security, I think the idea that Medicare is going to collapse is just simply overstated. At the same time, people just need to understand our perceptions of retirement to health care and retirement are influenced by what we read. For instance, just the other day I read this headline, well, you're going to need $176,000 for healthcare and retirement. People think, where am I gonna get that money? The same data show that people are gonna spend over $80,000 in the retirement on cable TV. You need to put this stuff in context. I mean, put cable TV and your cell phone together is probably how much you're gonna spend in retirement. And this is one of the themes of the book of why are we so scared There? Look there. There is simply incentives, whether it's in the news media or industry or politics to scare people. And the vast majority of people, you know, don't pay very much on nursing home costs. Most people do fine on health care and retirement. If healthcare or any other factor were crushing retirees, you would see that in things like surveys. When people say, how well am I doing financially? You would see it in things like bankruptcy rates for retirees, which are much lower than for younger people. So we really do need to say, if all these scary things were true, how come we're not seeing these terrible outcomes for retirees? And the fact is, we're not seeing them them. So it's important to understand people are worried. Especially if you're preparing for retirement, it's understandable to be worried. You have one shot at doing this. It demands all these mathematical calculations of what's the rate of return on my savings, what's my future earnings going to be, how long am I going to live? Look, it's understandable people are worried. This is really hard to do. But what you find is most people are pleasantly surprised by how they do in retirement. They worry, worry, worry throughout their working life and then they get to retirement, like, oh, wow, I'm actually doing okay. So it's, you know, I don't want people to worry, but it's I'd rather have that than the reverse. We do not have this idea. People are blissfully going along. They discover they don't enough money. That is really atypical. Most people are pleasantly surprised by how well they do in retirement.
- [21:11]
A
We're going to take a quick break.
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E
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- [22:10]
C
We are back. One of the other things that's shown up in the alliance research is that people save and save and save and save, and then they actually have trouble flipping the switch and spending the money on themselves. There's a lot of money sitting unintended in IRAs at the end of life that's being passed on to prior generations when maybe some of those folks would have had a better even standard of life had they been willing to spend a little bit more on themselves and their own enjoyment. How do you see the decumulation side of things playing out? And do you see ways that we could be doing it better?
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B
Sure, the spend down phase is complicated and there's a variety of things that are going on. I mean, I will say, along with my general good news theme here, if our problem is not that people don't have enough money, but they're not spending enough of their money, that shows we're in a pretty good situation to start with. But it is true that people have a very hard time converting lump sums to saying, how much can I have every month? I've got to. I have to pay my cable bill every month. I have recurring bills. Want to do things, how much can I afford? Purchasing an annuity is one way to do that. Where you take a lump sum like from a 401k and you convert it into what an old style pension would do, where you have a check that arrives in your bank account every month, it's constant, it's not going to go up and down with the stock market, but it's also something that's not going to run out. So two fears people have are what's going to happen with my investments and how long am I going to live. And purchasing an annuity can help solve both those problems. And so some people might want to take all of their savings and convert it to an annuity so that Social Security along with the annuity would be exactly the same as traditional pension. Other people might want to take some of their money and say, yeah, I want to have some base, that Social Security plus some base amount and I'm always going to have that and then I can play around with the rest, do with it whatever I want. So, so those kinds of financial products, they're solving problems that people have and giving them options that they might not otherwise have had. So I think they're just a great thing for people to look at and.
- [24:34]
C
We'Re starting to see them, thanks to the Secure act, move into retirement plans. You mentioned that the savings side of things has really benefited from all of the automation that's been put into, into 401ks and similar work based plans. The fact that people are auto enrolled, their contributions are auto escalated, they go up a percentage or 2 a year until you max out. People are defaulted into target date funds. So they're not having their money sit in money markets where it's not making them any money. Do you think that this is coming on the spending side of things as well?
- [25:16]
B
I think so. I mean this whole process you're talking about retirement, people say that 401ks are becoming pensionized, that it used to be that you had to decide how to allocate all your money, you had to decide how much to contribute, you had to change your asset allocations, then you had to figure out how to spend it down. And that's becoming automated now. So the retirement, the 401k system today is very different than when it started in the 1980s. And it's a much more efficient system, much more easy to use system. But the drawdown is kind of the last step of that, that people don't spend a lump sum in retirement. They spend some amount each month, each year. And we do know, you know, I mentioned earlier that the importance of having a retirement plan in the workplace that, you know, in theory you could have an IRA and do much the same, but when you have it at work, it becomes people just participate in more, do more. Building those sort of annuity options, the lifetime income options into a 401k, it just makes it easier for people. They don't. People feel uncomfortable. I'm going to take all this money out of my 401k and send it to somebody else. If you can have that option right there and decide how much you want to do, it simply makes life easier for people. And that's what we want to do. We don't want this to be hard. We want it to be easy. So I think that is the next.
- [26:35]
C
Step that we're looking at from a policy perspective. What else can be done to make it easier for people to improve their retirement landscape? And I'm thinking not just of people who have access to workplace plans, but you're right. AARP had a study that showed that people were 15 times more likely to save in a retirement account if it could be done through a paycheck withdrawal, which for a lot of people at small companies or solopreneurs just doesn't happen. So what can be done governmentally to help the rest of the folks?
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B
Well, I mean, I would be remiss if I didn't say first fix those security. I mean, fix the problem you've got or the problem you created before you address other things. But it's thinking about the private household retirement savings side. The vast majority of Americans who should be saving for retirement, who are the age and income level, where they should be saving, are saving. And so the gaps in saving are really a lot smaller than people think. At the same time, we're a civilized country. There's no reason why we should have those gaps at all. We know the workplace savings plan is much more effective than an ira. So why are we not offering that to everyone? I mean, the Secure act made baby steps in that direction of saying, you know, every newly formed company must offer a retirement plan or whatever, or do automatic enrollment, we've got to go beyond that. And part of the purpose is again, we don't want people to be scared. And so giving everybody that opportunity, even if it won't change participation all that much, to be honest, because most people who need to save are saving. But giving everybody that opportunity makes sense. But I will throw in one caveat. There is a lot of the times these sort of auto IRA or automatic enrollment plans are aimed at low income people. People. Because we're convinced with all these poor people they're not saving for retirement. They need to be. When you think about it, you know, you really run the numbers. A lot of them shouldn't be. They're getting a high replacement rate from Social Security, but on top of that is if we enroll a lot of low income workers into a retirement plan, they're going to end up with money at retirement. Guess what? They're going to lose a retirement their Medicaid. Because you know, probably the bottom 20% of seniors are getting Medicaid. They're gonna be disqualified for Medicaid until they spend down their savings. Which seems to be not the point of what we're trying to do here. We wanna make sure if they're saving for retirement, they're gonna benefit from it. So policymakers, whether it's in the States or in Washington D.C. need to think very carefully how these things work together. We can't simply just push these people in if it's not gonna benefit them. So a lot of these, sometimes these no brainer solutions are actually a little more complicated than people think. But I think you're giving everybody retirement plan, even auto enrolling, but just thinking very carefully how that's going to play out for low income people who receive means tested benefits. So I think we can solve a lot of these problems and give people peace of mind.
- [29:42]
C
On that note, for people who feel like they are behind, or for people who are simply afraid, even if they're clearly not behind, what advice would you give them to just blow through that fear?
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B
Well, I mean, there's a couple of things. One is to think carefully and you can get estimates from your retirement plan, from Social Security of the benefits you will get in retirement. And something like that can give some people some peace of mind of saying, okay, I'm in good shape. But if you look at it and you say I'm behind, I have not done what I needed to do, or you just want additional peace of mind, the most efficient thing is simply delay retirement by a couple of years because that means you have more time to save for retirement, a few extra years of compounding of your existing savings. And once you get close to retirement, it's that compounding effect which is doing the legwork. But on top of that, if you delay Social Security for each year you delay, that's a 7% increase in your benefits for life. So delaying retirement is a very effective way of increasing your retirement income. And it's something that people can do at the end they've discovered, oh, I should have saved more 30 years ago. Well, tough luck on that. You can't fix it. But if you can delay retirement by a year or so, that will have a meaningful effect on your income security in old age. You know, people say, oh well, you know, Americans can't do that. From the date I cited before, we're already doing it. And so I'm not saying everyone can do it, but it is an option people really should look at if they find they're behind the eight ball.
- [31:22]
A
Andrew Biggs the book is the Real.
- [31:24]
C
Retirement Crisis, why almost everything you know about the US Retirement system is wrong. Thank you so much for doing this today. If people want more information about you and your work, where would you send them?
- [31:39]
B
Well, of course they can buy the book conveniently.com you'd be a fool not to. But on top of that, I work with the American Enterprise Institute, which is a think tank in Washington D.C. or aei.org I also write a substack, free to everyone, called Little Known Facts where I talk about retirement policy and a lot of the sort of data and facts that you honestly won't find anywhere else. So if you're interested in it, I think that's just a good, great place to look at the sorts of things that I'm talking about.
- [32:07]
A
Well, I will be signing up for that as soon as we end this conversation. Thanks so much for doing this.
- [32:13]
B
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
- [32:15]
A
As always. For more tools and guidance on how to plan for retirement income you can't outlive, head to protectedincome.org and while you're there, don't forget to sign up for the newsletter@protectedincome.com subscribe. Here's my conversation with Andrew Biggs and if you'd like more information about the work from the alliance for Lifetime Income, you can find it at their website, which is ProtectedIncome.org they also have a newsletter, it's ProtectedIncome.org subscribe if you love today's episode, please take a moment to leave us a five star star review on Apple Podcast. Your feedback means the world to me. And if you're ready to keep the Money conversation going, HerMoney has three amazing programs designed to help you feel more confident and in control of your money. There's Finance Fix. It's our four week coaching program that helps you rethink your spending, find hidden savings and make smarter choices. Choices for the Future. Our pre retirement program runs for six weeks and walks you through building a retirement strategy that's personalized for your next chapter. Finally, there's Investing Fix, our investing club for Women. It meets every other week on Zoom. It is a supportive space to learn, ask questions, grow your investment confidence and build your portfolio. And your first month is absolutely free. These programs are truly helping level the playing field for women financially. I'd love for you to join us. Hermoney is produced by Hayley Pascalides and our music is provided by Video Helper. Thanks so much for listening and we'll talk soon. Earlier this episode I told you about a podcast I love to help guide my charitable giving decisions. Giving Done Right is all about how to make an impact with your giving and it tackles the question every donor is asking, how can I make the biggest difference right now? Now I want to give you a taste of the show. I hope you find it as valuable as I do. In this clip, Julie Butner, president and CEO of one of the largest food banks in the United States, reveals something that might change how you think about food assistance. Many clients are working families just like yours, people who simply can't stretch their paychecks to cover basic necessities. She explains how modern food banks have evolved beyond emergency food distribution to address root causes through healthcare partnerships, nutrition education and community programs. Her insights challenge common assumptions about who needs help and offer practical guidance for for anyone wondering how to make their giving count, whether through volunteering your time, donating money or advocating for change. Okay, here's the episode and you can listen to more Giving done right wherever you get your podcasts.
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F
The families that we see are making trade offs. So maybe they don't get three meals seven days a week, but maybe they have one meal seven days a week. What's sad about that is there are long term implications, particularly if these households have children. Children cannot learn without proper nutrition and so if a mom or a dad is making a decision to not have a meal, that means they're making that same decision for their household. You know, we see this a lot. We celebrated last year the installation of our 100th in school market where we have choice markets that are inside of schools so that parents who are dropping or picking up their children can also pick up groceries if they're in need of food. And I hear frequently from those teachers and those administrators about the issues that they experience when children don't have good nutrition. They can't learn, they have a shorter attention span, they're sleeping in the classroom, and teachers who are stuffing their drawers full of snacks so that if somebody comes to them and is hungry, they have something, you know, they're paying for it out of their own pocket. It certainly hurts a community. The other area where I see it really pronounced, and we've been working in this space, I'm a registered dietitian by education, and so nutrition is something that's personal for me, you know, not just as part of the mission. In fact, we changed our mission statement to include a statement about improving the health of the community. And we've been working with healthcare providers and payers about, you know, how can we fund intervention for community members who have chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease. So if you have a chronic disease, you have healthcare costs. When you have healthcare costs and you're lower income, that's another disruptor to your ability to purchase healthy food. I tell this anecdotal story. When I first started at the food bank, I met the new CEO of the Moncrief Cancer Institute, which is a cancer treatment center here in Fort Worth. I said, oh, we, you know, we ought to do some work together, because oftentimes cancer, you know, patients aren't getting the right kind of nutrition. He said, we absolutely should. He said, 36% of the people that we support with cancer treatment are food insecure. I said, 36%. Wow. I had no idea. And how do you know this? And he said, well, we asked the food insecurity question, and what's interesting about this, Julie, is they don't present as food insecure, but once they come in and they're getting treatment, they become food insecure, because now they are having to make decisions about do I pay for my treatment or do I pay for my food? And so we set up an intervention with the cancer institute here in Fort Worth for that reason. And we've been working with healthcare providers and payers to find ways for folks who have chronic diseases that are paying for medicine or paying for doctor visits or treatments to have access to medically tailored meals.