Vince Scidone is 90 years old and still working part-time at a convenience store in Oklahoma. He earns $14.90 an hour. Despite decades of hard work and a pension that began in 1998, today’s cost of living has forced him to stay employed.
“You can survive, but it’s a hard way to go,” Scidone told Business Insider recently. He worked as a carpenter for over 20 years, then spent another two decades representing union workers as part of the St. Louis District Council of Carpenters. He thought he had done everything right. But now, like many older Americans, he’s dealing with economic pressure in his later years.
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Scidone and his wife, Deborah, live on a combined annual income of $104,000. That includes his fixed pension and the $997 per month she receives from Social Security. Still, their monthly expenses come out to around $7,000. That includes utilities, medical bills, car payments, a mortgage, and church tithes. “We’re not saving anything,” he told Business Insider.
The couple had $50,000 saved when they married in 2022, but it didn’t last long. The down payment on a home, furnishing it, and rising property taxes drained their funds within three years. “We ran one credit card up, and we had to pay that off, because the interest would eat you alive,” he said. Their property taxes alone went from $2,000 a year to over $5,000.
Scidone began receiving his pension nearly three decades ago. But, as he put it, that amount is “etched in concrete.” It hasn’t increased, even as everything else has. “Twenty-seven years later, everything has escalated in price, so the money I was receiving over 20 years ago isn’t adequate for today’s economy,” he told Business Insider.
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He tried to find work for three months before finally getting hired by a convenience store chain last year. “I’m guessing that seeing a date of birth in 1934 made people back away,” he said. But they brought him in after a 45-minute interview. He now works Tuesday through Friday, five hours a day.
Scidone helps prepare food for the grab-and-go bar, including pizzas, quesadillas, hamburgers and more. He doesn’t handle customers, but he stays active in the kitchen. “It’s a pleasant job,” he told Business Insider, adding that he enjoys working with his team and that they often laugh and joke together.
