This study compared the financial status between the employed-elderly households and the unemployed-elderly households, focused on income adequacy, expenditure adequacy and net wealth adequacy. Using data from 1997 KHPS, the lower financial status of the unemployed elderly households were found. Nine measures of financial status were used : income, per capita income, income-to-needs ratio, expenditure, per capita expenditure, expenditure-to-needs ratio, net wealth, net wealth-to-income ratio and net wealth- to-expenditure ratio. The results of this study showed that unemployed elderly households had 68%~77% of income adequacy and 72%~83% of expenditure adequacy for employed elderly households. Holding for gender, age, education, earners in the household, living area and home ownership constant, although the gap was getting smaller, significant differences between the unemployed-elderly households and the employed-elderly households were persisted. The result of this study indicated that the unemployed-elderly households and the employed-elderly households can not be regarded ac homogeneous group when public policies are developed.