Nothing, however, is as straightforward as it seems in The Beguiled, not even its perversities. Take, for example, the lovely opening sequence in which a little, 12-year-old girl comes upon the body of the soldier in the forest. She is, at first, frozen with fear.
And nearly a quarter of married couples and almost half of unmarried retirees rely on Social Security payments for at least 90% of income. With an average monthly Social Security check of around $1,230 per month, seniors are receiving average annual payments that total just $14,760 a year.
Forty-one percent of the Nation's 31 million elderly people living in the community have incomes below twice the Federal povÂ­erty level (FPL) and 1 in 5 are poor or nearÂ­poor (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1996). In 1994, the FPL was $7,100 per year in income for a single elderly adult and $9,000 for an elderly couple.