PBS Democratic Debate: Live Coverage

Officially, 4.6 million American seniors were living in poverty in 2014; the senior poverty rate was 10 percent, lower than the 14.8 percent figure for Americans as a whole. But those numbers understate the level of poverty among seniors. The official definition of poverty is decades old and underestimates the cost of health care and other major expenses for seniors. Under an alternative definition of poverty that most economists consider superior, the poverty rate for seniors was 14.4 percent in 2014.

This conversation on meeting the basic needs of seniors is happening on Clinton’s turf — voters 65 and older were the only age group she won in New Hampshire, and they’ve made up a disproportionately large share of the audience for previous debates, both Democratic and Republican.

Clinton’s callout to coal country makes me wonder whether the moderators will ask about President Obama’s Clean Power Plan. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued an order preventing the Obama administration from taking steps to enact or enforce the CPP pending a decision on a court challenge to the plan filed by 29 states and numerous industry groups and stakeholders. The CPP is a cornerstone of President Obama’s climate policy and provides many of the emissions reductions that the administration pledged the Paris climate conference in December. An overturning of the CPP could pull the rug out from under the Paris treaty, much like how the 1997 Byrd-Hagel resolution weakened the Kyoto Protocol.