Social Security Cost of Living Increase is a Work of Fiction
While I'm taking note of the fact that I'll be receiving a 5.8% cost of living increase in my Social Security payments come January 2009, I have to laugh. This is touted as the largest increase in 25 years, but falls well short of real inflation. No one seems to know exactly what the "real inflation" rate is. But you can be certain it isn't nearly as low as 5.8%.
Last year a dozen eggs cost me $1.29 at my supermarket. Oddly, I keep track of this stuff in my head. Yesterday I paid $2.39. Folks, that's a 53% jump! While prices at the gas pump have fallen recently, they're still well above what we've seen over the last five years. And, does anyone believe they'll stay lower?
Now, I don't argue that cost of living increases should be tied to eggs. In fact, the Feds, in calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI), tell us that they weigh a whole market basket of goods and services. The problem is that these numbers can be manipulated, and are manipulated, to achieve political objectives, not to benefit retirees receiving social security. Food and energy are excluded from the CPI calculation because they are so "volatile". What does that tell you? It's just part of a lie the government foists upon us.
In fact, one reason for lying to us about inflation is to keep a lid on payments to grandma and grandpa. Cheating senior citizens is nothing new. And, in past years, whatever increases were logged, have been offset, in large part, by increases in Medicare premiums. There's some indication, however, that there will be no Medicare boost for 2009.
It's illegal for businesses to cook the books, but the government has a free reign to do just that. In the final analysis, older Americans are being cheated out of billions of dollars. I guess that in light of the current, mounting financial meltdowns, that can be viewed as a good thing. Right?
Robert G. Knechtel
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Perhaps the increase in COLA may have a deeper political meaning meant to gut punch at SS recipients and was discussed in advance between the outgoing and incoming Presidential administrations. Seems that the increase in the COLA boosted a good number of low income SS recipients incomes enough to lower their food stamp amounts or totally disqualify them.
The reason could be in advance of the current administrations seeking funding for part of the proposed(bill) 20 billion food stamp dollars in the political stimulation bill. So where did the financial stimulation go? The canabalized stomachs beome hungrier. Underfed stomachs promote longer lasting sour..