Andy Tullis / The BulletinArlene Eichelberger, 72, of Bend, talks about her Social Security while at the Bend Community Center.

Doug Eash and Linda Burlington became fast friends when they met in Central Oregon more than 15 years ago, sharing many common interests and friends.

The friends’ commonalities end with their retirement finances.

Eash and Burlington each earn about $1,000 per month from Social Security. Eash, 73, describes himself as being “financially OK,” and can put about half of this money into savings because he built a large nest egg before he retired. For Burlington — forced to move to Utah to live with daughter because she couldn’t afford to live on her own — that monthly check is her only source of income.

The difference between the two friends’ retirement situations exemplifies the split among Social Security recipients in Deschutes County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 50.6 percent of Deschutes County’s seniors have additional income from a pension, a 401(k), an Individual Retirement Account, their savings or another form of retirement income. Close to half the county’s seniors — 49.4 percent, count on Social Security alone.

Reasons for that can vary. Unexpected medical events that wiped out retirement savings is one example. The recent downturned economy also had a major impact on retirement accounts. Others worked for employers that didn’t offer an easy way to save for retirement.

Less than half of the state’s workers have access to some sort of retirement savings option. A bill headed to Gov. Kate Brown’s desk could change that.

“You can’t rely on Social Security any more,” said Caroline Fournier, 70, who’s thankful she and her husband were able to build up a nest egg for retirement that pays them a considerable amount of income each year.

Dispersed funds

The Social Security Administration deposited $47.1 million into the bank accounts of the more than 36,000 Deschutes County residents in December 2013, according to the administration’s most recent annual report. While that seems like a lot of money, each Social Security recipient receives an average of $1,241.44 per month, which is slightly higher than Oregon’s average monthly payment of $1,209.

“It takes all that money to pretty much exist,” said Burlington, 64, who relies on food stamps, Medicaid and whatever she can get from the senior meal and food bank programs that operate near her Central Utah home.

Hard times

Arlene and Jim Eichelberger, both 72, worked for most of their lives. He drove a truck and she worked at a plumbing supply company. Shortly before retirement, the couple ran into a huge financial hardship when Jim got sick and could no longer do his job.

Without her husband’s income, Arlene said, the couple could barely cover their living expenses and spent down the money they saved pretty fast. They gave their house to some friends to avoid losing it through foreclosure. Additionally, she seriously injured her back three times and ended up taking on some hefty medical bills.

“It’s hard,” Arlene said, explaining she and her husband now get only about $2,000 in Social Security benefits each month. “We don’t get to do a lot of things. We don’t get to travel, we don’t get to see our family,” she said. “It’s not fun. But we are surviving.”

She and her husband rely on food programs offered by groups like Bend’s Community Center, which runs a low-cost senior lunch program on weekdays, and the Family Kitchen, which provides four lunches and three dinners each week. These programs let their clients take food home with them, she said, adding that that really makes a difference when they can’t get out of their house.

Burlington faced a similar situation when she lost her job about 10 years ago. She spent all of the money she had saved for her retirement while leading an unsuccessful job search for five years. She lost her home when she could no longer pay a loan that gave her some extra cash to spend while either job prospects or the housing market improved.

“It was pretty rough,” Burlington said. “That wasn’t a good time in my life.”

While the $1,038 she gets each month from the program isn’t a lot of money, it’s enough to pay her rent, and that means she no longer has to live in her daughter’s house in Utah and can visit some of the friends and family she has in Oregon.

Access to savings

But, what makes Eichelberger’s and Burlington’s stories even more poignant is the fact that both women at least had a chance to save for their retirements. According to a recent report from the Oregon Retirement Savings Task Force, less than half of the state’s workers have access to an Individual Retirement Account, a 401(k), a pension or another retirement savings plan through their employer.

State Treasurer Ted Wheeler sought to fix the problem last year when he created a task force to consider Oregon’s retirement savings situation and help members of the Legislature craft a bill that would create a state-managed retirement savings plan for people who fall into this category.

The bill cleared the state Senate on Tuesday and is on its way to Gov. Brown’s desk.

If Brown signs the bill, Oregon will be one of five states — the others being California, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Illinois — that have either created or passed legislation to create a retirement savings program to help people who do not have access to one through their employers, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Arizona, Indiana and Pennsylvania have bills pending and eight other states are studying the issue.

Wheeler said the main goal of the retirement savings bill was to make sure people at least had access to some source of retirement income when they got older and were ready to retire. He said the legislation might also help the state’s safety net programs — Medicaid, food stamps, etc. — by making sure future generations of retirees do not have to live off of the money they get from Social Security alone.

“Social Security was never intended to be a sole source of retirement income,” Wheeler said “It’s not a good strategy to retire on Social Security alone.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, mmclean@bendbulletin.com