06/02/2026
Amy Kant initially thought she should name a power of attorney about 10 years ago after caring for a dying friend. She still hasn’t appointed someone to do it.
The 65-year-old is single with no children, and bound up in that choice over who should make financial decisions on her behalf are other big questions that are often intensified when aging alone. How to handle eldercare? Estate planning? Where will she live in her later years?
Kant had long cherished the freedom that came with being single. She prided herself on doing headstands in yoga and walking 5 miles a day. But lately being single has felt like a struggle, and not just because of the weighty financial decisions hanging over her head. Back surgery and a heart valve replacement in the past few years have turned her condominium outside Boston into a recovery ward.
Kant is among the millions of Americans learning to navigate aging alone. Roughly 10% of the more than 125 million adults ages 50 and older in the U.S.—or at least 12.5 million people—are solo agers who live alone and have neither a spouse nor a child, according to an AARP analysis of census data. It’s a growing demographic hitting both genders, driven in part by climbing divorce rates among older Americans and a rising number of adult children becoming alienated from their parents.
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