Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

Saturday, March 17, 2001     Page: 4A

It’s apparent some of your readers who call SAYSO are overly concerned
about seniors and their Social Security checks. Some remark that seniors hve
been observed buying lottery tickets. Some seniors even take the bus to
Atlantic City!
   
Common sense says we all have many monthly expenses such as food, shelter,
heat, medicine, light, telephone, auto, insurance, etc. They don’t have enough
to live on and certainly have no buying power. Readers should not generalize.
How anyone spends their money is that person’s business.
    Social Security checks are not a government handout. Most of the people
worked, like me, for 44 years or more. The money they received after
retirement was deducted from every paycheck. Year after year they paid into
Social Security, and interest was earned on that money. It does not come from
the money you are now paying into it.
   
My husband and I worked since we were 13 years old. We are now married 50
years. My husband had money deducted from every check towards his retirement.
It is from this retirement check that we splurge on lottery tickets, and even
on Atlantic City once a month. We couldn’t do it from our Social Security
check.
   
May I suggest, dear readers, taking your minds off how people spend their
income and give thought to wars, starvation, crimes, earthquakes and natural
disasters. Perhaps you could think about AIDS and other diseases that kill so
many.
   
Some of our children, despite the information on how the dangers of drugs,
are still ruining their lives and their families’ lives and making drug
dealers rich. Give some thought to the results of drug addiction.
   
More robberies are occurring locally. People are not safe in their homes or
workplaces.
   
Factories are closing, corporations are downsizing.
   
There are no morals anymore; there’s violence and filth on primetime TV, in
magazines and on the Internet.
   
We should all stop worrying about other people’s business and start praying
for a cleaner, safer world before it’s too late.
   
Irene Jorda
   
Dallas