"Forced to Early Social Security, Unemployed Pay a Steep Price."

This is a front-page NYT story that seems like it will speak generally about many people choosing early retirement over continuing to search for employment, but it concentrates on one woman, which — for me, least — invites the reader to examine and critique this one woman's choices. Unless she represents most people who go the early-retirement route, the headline is meaningless.

Clare Keany has chosen to retire at age 62 in Palm Springs, California on $1,082 a month in Social Security. An immigrant from Britain, she worked for "nearly three decades" in the United States and was earning $64,000 a year when she lost her job. And she blew "the last of her savings" on a $19,000 mobile home and proceeds to pay $336 a month to park it in Palm Springs.

We're told she's youthful and energetic and doesn't like "living like this." But she was "Forced...."

I don't want to be too critical of this one individual. My problem is with the NYT. I know this is one way they write articles, and I myself have been the one woman in a NYT article. But what do we know when we know what happened to one person?