Seniors are having a hard time making ends meet during the recession in all parts of the world.

A report from Age Concern in April said that 24% of seniors in the United Kingdom, around 2.5 million citizens, think that the quality of their lives has diminished during the last year. Twelve months prior to the April 2009 study, the number of citizens who believed this was around 2 million.

The truth is that one out of every five seniors live below the poverty line. Those who are below the poverty line have to do what they can to make ends meet; which includes skipping meals or missing out on essential items. Many are going without electricity and cutting back on gas consumption.

Many seniors who lived through World War II and throughout the post war period have acquired skills that they are now employing to meet their most basic needs. Cooking from scratch instead of buying meals that are already made or going out to eat, from what they cook, eating more leftovers, sewing and fixing their own clothing and growing their own vegetables are all some of the things that seniors are finding themselves doing to save money here and there.

Sixty eight percent of those seniors surveyed feel as though they aren’t held in high reguard by politicians and most have little confidence that the government will help the senior population throughout this recession.

Worse yet, is that many of those seniors that are finding they have to go back to work to just afford those basic necessities are coming up against age discrimination. Men who are older than 50 only have a 20% chance of getting the same job two years after leaving. Then once they lose their job, for every year that goes by, their chances of finding a similar job drops by a further quarter.

In the United States, there is a similar situation. Many seniors are finding themselves going back to work, if they can find work. Some who once held jobs in manufacturing plants simply can’t do work like that anymore due to health issues. If they can do the work, then it is hard to find that kind of work. Even those who had professional desk jobs are having a difficult time finding work. Rules and regulations change over time and if someone is out of that element for any extended period of time, then new rules typically won’t be learned as opposed to someone who is in the business who will know those regulations.

Age Concern’s “One Voice” report ended with seven priorities for action in 2009 for seniors. Those priorities included banning the required retirement age (in the UK), helping with age discrimination by educating seniors in skills, and spending 1 to 2 billion pounds on social care.