With the election a little over a month away, some say caregiving and long-term care are issues too big for candidates in Oregon to ignore.

There are about 460,000 family caregivers in the state providing $5.7 billion of unpaid care, according to a 2017 estimate.

Yvonne Smith, a faculty member at Clackamas Community College, said some people may not even realize they are caregivers.

"For example, if you are helping someone manage their medications, if you're doing someone's grocery shopping, if you're checking in on them and helping them go through their mail," Smith outlined. "Those are all caregiving activities."

Smith pointed out despite the numbers, Oregon is in need of more caregivers, especially with the avalanche of Baby Boomers retiring in the coming years. She added people need more resources.

"We don't have enough," Smith contended. "In fact, we don't have almost any programs to support in-home caregivers."

Smith explained Oregon has applied for a Medicaid waiver to ensure family caregivers can get breaks through respite care. She also noted professional caregiving from people who are not family members or friends is low-paying, although it is beginning to change with recent unionization efforts in the industry.

Fred Steele, Oregon's long-term care ombudsman, agreed the state is in need of more workers.

"There is a significant workforce shortage across the state for caregiving," Steele observed. "Whether it be in in-home settings, but particularly in our long-term care settings."

Steele emphasized the issues caregivers face, especially in long-term facilities, have garnered more attention since the pandemic began. He stressed it is most important to ensure workers have the training, wages and benefits they need to do their job successfully and support themselves.

Back-and-forth decisions on Social Security policies have created confusion, which may leave some Virginians more vulnerable to scams.

Last month, the Social Security Administration announced in-person or online appointments would be required to sign up for benefits, instead of customer support by phone. The decision has now been reversed.

Jim Dau, state director of AARP Virginia, said the changes give con artists room to come up with new scams. He noted they often start with a phone call, text or email about something "urgent." If you receive such communication saying it is from the Social Security Administration, Dau warns, it is a scam.

"This is the perfect kind of recipe for financial predators to step in and escalate Social Security scams to defraud beneficiaries of their money," Dau stressed. "Social Security scams are effective in this kind of environment -- where people are getting information from here, and bits of information from here -- where we are going to see more and more Social Security scams."

Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk has said Social Security has "massive" amounts of fraud, but a review by the Social Security Administration's Inspector General has found the agency has made improper payments less than 1% of the time.

More than 1.6 million Virginians receive Social Security benefits. Dau emphasized the monthly income is a lifeline to people across the Commonwealth. He added the administration's initial changes which would have required people to sign up for benefits in person would have negatively affected seniors.

"The prospect of having to go to an in-person meeting at your local Social Security office, hopefully get there on time at a point where the line isn't too long and you have a reasonable chance of actually seeing somebody that day," Dau outlined. "And of course, hopefully your Social Security office is open that day - or at all anymore."

The administration has announced lease terminations of nearly 4% of Social Security field offices. An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds nine percent of Virginia seniors already live more than 45 miles from the nearest office.

The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, plans to cut 7,000 jobs from the U.S. Social Security Administration as it works to reduce the size of the federal government by eliminating waste and fraud. Nearly one in six Coloradans relies on Social Security payments, according to AARP.

Economist Monique Morrissey with the Economic Policy Institute calls the planned cuts a form of sabotage, and says Social Security is already very efficient.

"Less than 1% of what they are paying out goes to administrative costs. That's including not just the staffing, but the office space and everything else," she said. "So, almost all the money that's going out of Social Security is going directly into beneficiaries' pockets."

Morrissey added the agency is challenged by staffing, which has recently fallen to a 50-year low. She said wait times for phone and in-person appointments have already skyrocketed, and half of all callers now hang up before anyone answers.

President Donald Trump's Senior Advisor Elon Musk claims Social Security could be cut by $500 billion without reducing benefits, but Morrissey said layoffs can only save that kind of money by making it harder for people to access their benefits.

"And they claim that they can do this through looking for waste, fraud and abuse. But when you consider that less than 1% goes to anything that's improper payments - which is mostly not fraud, but just mistakes, and that usually get recouped - you can't get half a trillion dollars out of it and not be cutting benefits," she continued.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will run out of money in less than ten years unless Congress acts. Morrissey noted the majority of Americans would rather increase revenues than cut benefits, and added that one easy fix would be to remove the cap on payroll taxes.

"Everybody should pay the same share of their income into Social Security, and right now that is not happening. If you make more than $176,100, you don't pay taxes above that amount," she explained.

The Social Security office in Grand Junction is on a DOGE list of possible closures in June, although the agency said last month it "had not announced the permanent closure of any local field office."


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The Social Security Administration backtracked on a new plan, set to take effect today, that would have required more people to apply for benefits in person instead of by phone.

Older Kentuckians say they've worked hard their whole lives for their benefits, and are relieved the changes won't go into effect.

Older residents in rural areas would have had to drive up to four hours in some cases to a local Social Security office, said Carla Wallace, an executive council volunteer with AARP Kentucky.

She added that folks filing for benefits for the first time might've had to take a day off work to fill out paperwork they could have done over the phone.

"I think it's very disrespectful to our senior citizens and our disabled community," said Wallace. "It is very inconsiderate."

More than one million Kentuckians receive some form of Social Security benefit each year. And six million Americans age 65 and over live more than 45 miles roundtrip from their nearest Social Security office, according to a report this month by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Trump administration originally stated the changes would have reduced fraud risk.

Seniors' benefits shouldn't be on the chopping block, Wallace added. She noted that amid the rising cost of living, nearly half of the nation's older residents have trouble purchasing food or paying for housing and utilities.

She said AARP will continue to rally for Social Security.

"We are a nonpartisan organization," said Wallace. "We have people in Frankfort and in Washington, D.C. - advocating for us every day."

A nationwide survey released last year by the National Institute on Retirement Security found 87% of Americans agree that Social Security should remain a priority for the nation, no matter the state of budget deficits and across party lines.