Group warns social security payment increase may not be enough to keep up with inflation

A group representing senior citizens in the U.S. has warned that this year’s adjustments to social security cost of living allowances of the elderly will not be enough to keep up with rising inflation.

The Senior Citizens League predicts that the Social Security Administration’s 2027 cost of living adjustment will be 2.8 percent, contrasting with 3.3 percent average inflation over the last 12 months.

The adjustment was the same as last year, which was also 2.8 per cent.

“Rather than taking away benefits from people who have paid into the system their entire working lives, we should focus on strengthening America’s pension system,” said Shannon Benton, executive director of TSCL.

“Seniors tell us over and over that their benefits don’t go as far as they used to, and many younger people worry if the program will have atrophied to a shadow of its former self by the time they reach retirement age, even as taxes on their wages cover today’s benefits.”

Figures put out by TSCL are based on the same metrics used by SSA to calculate adjustments, but the group has long-argued that such metrics do not take into account extra costs incurred by elderly Americans.

This includes housing, groceries, medicine and extra medical care that younger households do not need.

“The fact is that most senior households already get by on only about 58 per cent as much income as their working-age counterparts,” Benton added. “And you’d be hard-pressed to find a middle-class or working-class American who thinks the economy is doing well right now, especially as oil prices rise.”

The advocacy group has previously highlighted how 90 per cent of senior citizens were unhappy with their monthly benefits allowance, with many citing COLAs that “lag inflation” as the problem.

TSCL has called for a congressional overhaul on the methods used for calculating the adjustments, which currently uses the CPI-W – Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners, rather than the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly – CPI-E – which is “specifically based on the spending patterns of Americans 62 years of age and older.”

The group has proposed an alternative system it has named “CPI Best,” where COLA increase is best on the highest out of the CPI-W, the CPI-E, or a minimum increase of 3 per cent.