Senior Sentiment Report January 2021

• Political situation rocks Seniors
• Tensions remain high
• Connectedness falls

Seniorly is proud to introduce our second Senior Sentiment Report. The survey is a monthly snapshot of how seniors in the US are feeling about their well-being and quality of life. The findings of each survey are summarized in a monthly Seniorly Sentiment Score, a combined overall score between 0 and 100, reflecting older adults' answers to questions about connectedness, affordability, and mental health.

The January 2021 Senior Sentiment Score is a combined overall score, reflecting this month’s Senior Connectedness Index, Senior Affordability Index, and Mental Health Index:

The Sentiment Score is a real-time qualitative measure of well-being and quality of life among our seniors, designed to track their responses to events and factors with wide-reaching national impact on a monthly basis.

The current Senior Sentiment score is 50.1 (a slight decrease from 55 in December). The most likely driver of the decrease in this month’s score is the changing and evolving political situation that is playing out in Washington D.C. 86% of our 500 respondents had an opinion about the political situation unfolding in our nation's capital. Whether liberal or conservative, the opinion was overwhelmingly negative about the state of affairs. This survey was conducted 1/13/21 to 1/19/21.

These opinions are reflected in the Mental Health and Connectedness Index, both of which dipped compared to the previous month:

For context, when asked which emotion they felt the most in the previous month, only 40% of seniors said “happy”, “contented”, or “excited”.

Top 3 January 2021 Index Highlights

Emotions Remain High and the Political Situation Impacts Seniors

The political situation that unfolded since the last survey weighed heavy on the minds of seniors. Fully 86% had an opinion about the situation in Washington D.C., and 40% mention the political situation as their greatest monthly stressor. The amount of Seniors who mentioned they were “worried” as their most prominent monthly emotion doubled from 10% to 23%. The amount that were “angry” saw a nearly 5x increase, with just under 6% of seniors describing this as their greatest emotion. In the free form response, Senior after Senior expressed concern and strong feelings, with such quotes as “Very concerned about the divisiveness in our country” and “a mess, we need a 3rd party”. 

Affordability Concerns Remain Top of Mind, though marginally improved

Over the past month, the affordability index has improved from a score of 31 to 36. This represents nearly a 16% increase and is primarily driven by a slight increase in opinion that senior care is affordable. However, only 11% of seniors said their finances have improved in the previous month, compared with 17% of seniors who said their finances had worsened. This is slightly down from the previous months responses of 13% and 16%, respectively. Lastly, over 50% of seniors think senior living and senior care is overpriced for the value 

Connectedness Suffers

Seniors have found themselves more isolated in the past month, with the Connectedness Index decreasing from 67 to 51. This large decrease is driven primarily from Seniors who report they would like more support, as 36% of seniors mention this gap. Furthermore, approximately 20% of Seniors have less than 3 people supporting them on a monthly basis. Only 24.9% of seniors feel strongly connected to the community around them .

If you’re interested in a more in-depth explanation of how we survey and collect data, please contact research@seniorly.com. 

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You can also view our infographic for the January 2021 Sentiment Score here.