(The Center Square) – The Social Security Administration will increase benefit payments this week to respond to rising inflation, analysts say.
The agency is expected to announce the scheduled benefits increase Thursday, and the Senior Citizens League has predicted that increase will be 8.7%, one of the largest hikes ever.
“Across the board, retired and disabled Social Security recipients spend a bigger portion of their incomes on healthcare costs, housing, and food and less on gasoline,” said Mary Johnson, Social Security and Medicare policy analyst for the Senior Citizens League. “Over the past 12 months, they rank food costs as their fastest growing expenditure, housing, and transportation in that order. Wall Street, however, clearly believes that the August numbers indicate that inflation is still with us, and higher than hoped. We agree. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics August press release, ‘increases in shelter, food and medical care were the largest of many contributors’ to the August increase.
“A COLA of 8.7% is extremely rare and would be the highest ever received by most Social Security beneficiaries alive today,” she added.
The latest BLS data put the consumer price index increase at 8.3% over the past 12 months. Food prices in particular have soared.
“The food at home index rose 13.5 percent over the last 12 months, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending March 1979,” BLS said. “The index for other food at home rose 16.7 percent and the index for cereals and bakery products increased 16.4 percent over the year. The remaining major grocery store food groups posted increases ranging from 9.4 percent (fruits and vegetables) to 16.2 percent (dairy and related products).”
The higher Social Security payments are intended to help seniors on a fixed income struggling to make ends meet.
“I would say while this is currently a chronic problem every year, yes, indications are that the COLA will not reflect pockets of persistently high inflation affecting retired and disabled Social Security recipients,” Johnson said. “That puts tens of millions of retirees at risk of continuing to fall behind, or as our reader described ‘financial drowning.’ Those who receive Social Security are quick to confirm they are not just at risk, those who have been retired for any length of time, have fallen behind financially. The buying power of Social Security benefits has occasionally improved in the past but that may not be enough when retirees have spent down their savings to stay afloat in years when inflation was going up. The lifeboat is leaking and taking on water leaving older Americans at risk of financial drowning.”
Social Security, another program the Marxist Democrats screwed up. Check the history of Social Security you will see what I mean.
It’s progressed from the original voluntary program.
Name one program that the govt’s made (especially the dems)< WHICH HAS been a resounding success?
Well, all you have to do is look at their record.
You see, first there was…
Oh, and then they passed…
And how can we forget…
See? They have a perfect record!
The only one I’ve seen, or can think of, is when FDR came up with the CCC to help put people to work and help to bring us out of that great depression. Since those days I’ve seen nothing.
AND that was a TEMPORARY THING.. Damn near everything else they’ve put in place, are permanent.
” ‘Financial Drowning’: Social Security Could Give Seniors Historic Raise This Week Due To Inflation
Casey Harper | The Center Square | Oct 11, 2022 | News .”
” Hi, I’m from the Government and I’m Here to Help.” Author unknown.
MadeinAmerica33 MadeinAmerica33
“,,,Social Security, another program the Marxist Democrats screwed up. ”
Frederic Bastiat said, In THE Law,” Page # 30, ” The Law and Charity,” YOU SAY: There are persons who have no money,” and you turn to the Law. But the LAW is not a Beast that fills itself with milk. … nothing can enter the public treasure for the benefit of one citizen or one class unless other citizens and other classes have been forced to send it in…”
Voltaire said, ” In General, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give to the other.”
ltuser on 4:13 pm October 11, 2022 at 4:13 pm
Name one program that the govt’s made (especially the dems)< WHICH HAS been a resounding success?"
" Financial Drowning’: Social Security Could Give Seniors Historic Raise This Week Due to Inflation
Casey Harper | The Center Square | Oct 11, 2022 | News : Title of Article
Welfare: " Cloward and Piven were both professors at Columbia University of social Work. Their Strategy was formulated in a May 1966 article in the liberal magazine THE NATION TITLED A Strategy to end poverty ." / "Redistribution of INCOME…"
" Theodore Roosevelt once said: “There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americans. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all…"
" For the Race, Everything, For Those outside the race, Nothing." La rosa,
to paraphrase them.