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  • 2009-09-23 (xsd:date)
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  • Is Congress Voting Against Social Security COLA Increases? (en)
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  • Since the mid-1970s, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has provided for cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in order to help keep benefits in line with the rate of inflation. During several years of the last decade COLA increases were small or non-existent, but the most recent increase boosted Social Security benefits for 2018 by 2.8%: Years with no COLA increases are a worrisome prospect for many retirees (and other Social Security recipients) living on fixed incomes. However, expressing anger with Congress over this circumstance is misplacing the blame, as Congress has no say over COLAs — that body cannot decide whether or not to allow COLAs, nor can it pre-empt COLAs by spending the money that would have been used to pay for them on something else (such as Obamacare) as suggested in the following examples: Under federal law, Social Security COLA increases are based solely on a formula which is tied to specific economic indices (primarily the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers), and the application of that formula under the economic conditions of the last few years has not called for an increase: The statement in the above-cited example about Congress' having spent $24 million of Social Security money on an electronic medical records processing system for themselves is a grossly distorted version of an expenditure that was neither funded by the SSA's withholding cost of living increases (or an increase on all Medicare pharmacy benefit co-payments), nor made for the benefit of Congress itself. The SSA announced in August 2009 that it was making available $24 million in contracts with the aim of implementing an information technology (IT) system to improve the efficiency of its disability programs: As well, the announcement noted that the $24 million cost of the contract program was funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (commonly known as the economic stimulus package passed by Congress in February 2009), not paid for out of the Social Security general fund. (Moreover, $24 million is a minuscule amount compared to what even a modest COLA increase would entail — that sum of money wouldn't be sufficient to pay every Social Security recipient a mere one cent extra per week in 2011.) Also, Congress has not just voted themselves another 3% salary increase. In 2009, and again in 2010, members of Congress voted not to receive their automatic cost-of-living salary increases. (en)
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