At 87 , Marylyn Jones likes to point out, she and the Golden Gate Bridge are the same age \u2014 \u201calthough she\u2019s had a lot more paint than I have.\u201d<\/p>\n
That makes them both younger than Social Security, which turns 90<\/a> in August. For most of her lifetime, and most of Social Security\u2019s, Jones paid into the federal retirement program, even since taking her first job at age 16 in a Marin County, California, ice cream shop.<\/p>\n The monthly payments she gets in return allow the former banker and real estate agent to live independently in a three-bedroom house in Las Vegas, where she recently welcomed AARP\u2019s chief executive officer, Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan<\/a>, to talk about what Social Security has meant to her.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial Security is a lifeline,\u201d Jones told Minter-Jordan as they sat together in her living room. Without it, \u201cI\u2019d have to get a job, but who\u2019s going to hire an 87-year-old woman?\u201d<\/p>\n A February 2025 AARP survey<\/a> found that 88 percent of Americans over 50 say Social Security is important for a financially secure retirement<\/a>, and 86 percent worry that the program will not be able to provide the same level of benefits in the future as it does today.<\/p>\n Join Our Fight to Protect Social Security\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n You\u2019ve worked hard and paid into Social Security with every paycheck. Here\u2019s what you can do to help keep Social Security strong:<\/p>\n Jones shares that worry, and she wants Congress to act now to secure Social Security\u2019s future. She frequently calls and writes her representatives, asking, \u201cHow can you sit up there and proclaim you represent your constituency?\u201d<\/p>\n No expectations<\/p>\n Until five years ago, Jones was hosting open houses and driving clients around to viewings as a real estate agent in San Bernardino County, California. During the pandemic, she moved three hours east to Vegas to be near one of her three daughters. Redoing her real estate license in a new state and building up a list of clients all over again wasn\u2019t something Jones wanted to do. \u201cAs you get older, you don\u2019t have the same energy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Now, instead of negotiating sale prices, Jones spends her days gardening, painting and watching football or baseball games, depending on the season (she roots for the Raiders, Dodgers and A\u2019s). She volunteers through her local Kiwanis Club, mentoring high school students and taking communion from her church into retirement homes. \u201cIt keeps me out of the bars and off the Strip,\u201d she jokes.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a retirement Jones didn\u2019t expect to enjoy. When she claimed Social Security at 65, she saw the monthly payment as something that would \u201conly supplement my income, not replace it.\u201d Jones expected she\u2019d need to keep working as long as she could.<\/p>\n