10. All the Older Single Ladies in Poverty

Garance Franke-Ruta, senior editor at The Atlantic, writes about the statistical increase of poverty among single women over age 65 from 2011 to 2012. This phenomenon was unexpected since the percentage of poor elderly women was stable for over a decade and it suddenly increased in one year. The reasons are unsure, but a possible explanation is that reductions in Social Security Administration funding might have directly affected those dependent on it. Franke-Ruta says that as Baby Boomers age, overall poverty rates among the elderly will increase. Also, because the overall poverty rate among elderly woman actually decreased in the past decade, the increase of extreme poverty rate in the past year was shocking.

Franke-Ruta does an excellent job in her writing, but surprisingly commits some mistakes that are not expected from a senior editor of a news website. The author uses humor at the start by saying that “community colleges may need to start teaching courses for women on "How to Be Old," because America's ladies are not doing a great job of figuring it out.” She uses the humor effectively as an attention getter for her essay. Also, Franke-Ruta does add some credibility to her ideas by including actual census statistics. She does remember to cite the National Women's Law Center, especially the senior policy analyst, Katherine Gallagher Robbins, for all the information she utilizes in her writing. To conclude her essay, the author adds "Will this be a trend or a blip?" The reflective and rhetorical nature of this question by Katherine Gallagher Robbins is a great way to end Franke-Ruta’s essay. Along the essay however, Franke-Ruta seems to have made some obvious grammatical mistakes. Some might have been done on purpose due to a specific writing style, but others are confusing to the reader and don’t seem to have any intended use. It is not certain if the author did those accidentally.

 http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/all-the-older-single-ladies-in-poverty/280036/