{"id":444,"date":"2015-01-02T20:24:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T20:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/?p=444"},"modified":"2016-04-22T13:46:56","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T13:46:56","slug":"at-age-73-real-retirement-is-not-an-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/2015\/01\/02\/at-age-73-real-retirement-is-not-an-option\/","title":{"rendered":"At Age 73, Real Retirement Is Not An Option"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>KERA\u2019s series <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/keranews.org\/topic\/one-crisis-away\">One Crisis Away<\/a><strong> put a face on asset poverty by chronicling four North Texas families dealing with life on the financial edge.\u00a0This holiday season, we\u2019re catching up with some of those families, including 73-year-old Shirley Martin.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Health issues forced her to retire from her career as a cook a decade and a half ago. But she was back working a year later.<\/p>\n<p>According to a recent Gallup poll the average U.S. retirement age is 62. Shirley\u2019s not average, she still works five days a week to make ends meet and her dream of a real retirement still isn\u2019t an option.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Y8rqeWTxLlU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Shirley\u2019s actual job title is \u201cPeople Greeter\u201d at the Desoto Walmart. For 32 hours each week, she checks shoppers\u2019 receipts, points customers in the right direction and most importantly, offers up a warm, friendly greeting.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley genuinely cares about her customers and it must show. They share a lot more with her than a distracted \u201chello.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething going wrong, they had this happen, they had a crisis happen, they had a death,\u201d Shirley says. \u201cIt\u2019s always something, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In about a 15 minute span of greeting customers, Shirley got two hugs, a compliment on her perfume and an update on a recent medical diagnosis. So why do people flock to Shirley Martin?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know!\u201d she laughs. \u201cI don\u2019t have a sign up saying Shirley\u2019s counseling service or anything. I just got that look. I just got that face I guess and they know I don\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And she goes out of her way to help if she can. Take one customer last month who didn\u2019t have a place to live with her two young grandchildren.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI gave her the number to call which was Shared Housing to see if they could help her. They didn\u2019t have anything so that meant that she didn\u2019t have anywhere to go,\u201d says Shirley. \u201cSo I told her you and your two grandchildren, come and stay with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They moved in the week before Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n<p>When we profiled her a year ago, Shirley was sharing her Desoto home with paying tenants. They\u2019ve all moved out and that\u2019s put her in an even tighter financial spot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the bills still go on. They don\u2019t stop, they don\u2019t come down. They go up. It takes every dime I get. Even with my income I have from Social Security and the job that I have here. It takes every bit of it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley gets $1,200 dollars a month from Social Security, that\u2019s just a little below average. She makes $7.75 an hour at Walmart. That\u2019s less than $13,000 a year.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley knows she won\u2019t be able to work in retail forever. She CAN sit on a stool during her shift, but most of the time, she\u2019s on her feet, right in the middle of the chaos.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m hoping that I can retire again in a few years. But it just depends. But you know, this keeps me going. Because I notice that if I sit down too much, you know you get older, your bones and everything want to stop,\u201d says Shirley. \u201cThat keeps me motivated, it works my mind, gives me something to do, something to think of other than myself, or my situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear that thinking of herself is the last thing on Shirley\u2019s priority list when she\u2019s at work. She treats everyone with the utmost respect. From the customer who\u2019s facing tough times, to the rich and famous.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho\u2019s that, Nez Bryant? Dez Bryant? Dez Bryant. He was in here a couple weeks ago,\u201d Shirley says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KERA\u2019s series One Crisis Away put a face on asset&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":445,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-one-crisis-living-on-the-financial-edge","post_format-post-format-audio","byline-courtney-collins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.kera.org\/onecrisisaway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}