The COLA, or Cost Of Living Adjustment, has been a nearly annual increase in Social Security payments. Why? To keep benefits consistent with inflation. Otherwise, seniors would be at the mercy of rising prices on fixed incomes. Lean times in the economy, however, have meant cutting back COLA for the past two years, leaving many seniors with no choice but to further tighten their belts. The 3.6% increase will be warmly received by many. For example, beneficiaries receiving $1,186 a month, the average for retired workers, will see monthly benefit increase of $43. To be sure, it’s not a dramatic…
If the debt-debate in Washington gets much worse it could mean a lot more belt-tightening for America’s seniors, including changes to the COLA for Social Security, the Cost Of Living Adjustment meant to keep seniors at pace with inflation. The change proposed by both sides of Congress and the White House officials, elaborated in this SmartMoney article, is to adjust the measurement of inflation used when determining the COLA. Inflation is a fairly common concept – the general and expected upward creep of costs – but economists are less certain about the most appropriate measurement. Currently, costs of products are…
The Social Security Administration last week announced that there will be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security recipients again next year. Social Security and SSI benefits are adjusted annually to reflect increases, if any, in the cost of living as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), prepared by the Bureau of Labor of Statistics. Since the BLS determined that there was no increase in this index from the third quarter of 2008 through the third quarter of 2010, there can be no increase in the COLA for 2011. There…
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