HARRISBURG — Taking action to address the findings of its recently released statewide study of financial exploitation of older adults, the Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA) has convened an interdisciplinary task force of state agencies, aging, legal, financial, law enforcement and healthcare stakeholders and subject matter experts to discuss the issue of financial exploitation and focus on a multi-disciplinary approach to its prevention.
The formation of a task force was one of the five recommendations of PDA’s Financial Exploitation Study, released in September 2020. The task force is scheduled to meet through April 2021 with the goal of better coordinating efforts and supports for older adults to provide additional opportunities for the early detection and prevention of financial exploitation. Prior to assembling the task force, PDA convened a state interagency workgroup to explore collaborations between agencies and to develop recommendations for the task force to consider.
“Financial exploitation causes significant harm to older adults and we know it is significantly underreported. The department felt it was imperative to bring together stakeholders who work closely with older adults and discuss how financial exploitation occurs and ways to prevent and stop it,” said Secretary of Aging Robert Torres, who is chairing the task force. “I am pleased with the great feedback we received during the first meeting. Some members even made connections to work with one another outside of the task force. I look forward to seeing tangible results from these collaborations and the work of this task force to help protect vulnerable older adults.”
PDA conducted the financial exploitation study in response to Governor Wolf’s 2019 Executive Order on protecting vulnerable populations. The study examined several hundred substantiated financial exploitation cases investigated by 10 local Area Agencies on Aging, covering 14 Pennsylvania counties. The study reported that the average victim was female, around 79 years old, widowed and living alone, with an income above the federal poverty guidelines. Sixty-five percent of the perpetrators were family members, most of them adult children. The average financial loss to each victim in the study was almost $40,000, totaling close to $12.5 million in the cases included in the study alone. Only one in 10 to one in 44 cases are ever reported. As a result, estimated losses, including unreported cases, for fiscal year 2017/2018, could have been as high as $2.5 billion.
