Millions of Social Security recipients, veterans with disabilities and federal retirees will receive no benefit increase this year. It’s all linked to something called COLA or the annual cost-of-living adjustment.
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By law, the cost-of-living adjustment is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Note:, Automatic raises for Social Security benefits were first enacted by Congress in 1975, when inflation was high and their was a lot of pressure from constituents to have benefits increased regularly. They didn’t like it when it happened in 2010 and 2011 as the country had allegedly pulled out of the Great Recession. The average monthly payment is $1,224. They’ve been retired for about 20 years, and Social Security is also a big part of their income. If there is not or there is a drop, benefits stay the same.
“My husband and I are both retired and, you know, besides our small pensions, our Social Security is what we live on”, Margaret Frymoyer said. Many of them rely on Social Security money.
It isn’t the first time the Frymoyers have had to go without a boost in their Social Security checks.
That doesn’t work in favor of fixed government income beneficiaries who know that costs for health care, housing and other expenses have been chewing bigger chunks from their checks. They and the Fritzinger family hope that in the future, more money comes their way. Consumer prices for July and August fell compared with previous year.
Advocates argue that the government’s measure of inflation doesn’t accurately reflect price increases in the goods and services that older Americans use.
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For each of the past three years, Social Security payments have climbed less than two percent. “Just because the price of gas is going down, that doesn’t mean anything”.
