Ms. Brown, who’s 63 and lives in Oak Cliff, is one of millions of older women who live alone and scramble to make ends meet. Their median income is $12,080 a year, half of what older men receive. Long overlooked, these women have begun to gain the attention of policy analysts and lawmakers who expect the number of poor older women to swell as 40 million baby boomer women retire. “Unless there are dramatic policy shifts, boomer women, particularly minority women, will find retirement a never-ending struggle,” said Paul Hodge, chairman of Harvard’s Global Generations Policy Institute.