The Social Security administration announced there will be a 1.5% increase in social security benefits next year. The cost of living adjustment is fairly low, but if chained CPI had passed Congress and was used, the situation for social security increases would be much worse.
The press is announcing a low social security cost of living adjustment for 2014, a 1.5% increase. The problem with this headline announcement by the press is the social security cost of living increase has not been announced yet and is highly dependent on government inflation statistics for September. These September statistics have not been released and due to the shutdown, probably will not be this week.
The November Consumer Price Index decreased -0.3% from October. CPI measures inflation, or price increases. The culprit is gas prices. The gasoline index declined by -7.4%, the largest decline in gas prices since December 2008. The dramatic drop in gas prices offset inflation in other areas for the month which resulted in a decline not seen since May 2012 Below are CPI's monthly percentage changes.
The Consumer Price Index for September 2010 increased 0.1% from last month. For the year, the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) has risen 1.1%. The increase this month was all gas and food. Core CPI, or all items less food and energy, was unchanged from last month, where it too flatlined to +0.0%. This report is from the BLS website.
This should come as no surprise to anyone following CPI analysis, The Social Security administration will announce there will be no increase in social security benefits next year.
Next Time someone screams social security must be privatized, refer to this.
Without changes in law, CBO expects that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2043. If that point is reached, the Social Security Administration will not have the legal authority to pay full benefits and the amounts that could be paid would be about 17 percent less than those scheduled under current law.
The truth is that we can fix Social Security for literally pennies a day per worker and don't need to pay attention to hysterical Henny Penny's. Social Security is mostly not broken and the part that kinda is (DI) is fixable. And we have (or will shortly) numbers to prove it.
What was supposed to be healthy for the next eight years may suddenly become sickly as soon as next year. What this means to the budget is catastrophic.
I want you to note the extreme deterioration in surplus funds between the 2008 and 2009 forecasts. Can you spot the trend?
Here’s a prediction – these too will be revised to the worse in about 6 months. I base this prediction on my belief that more people will opt for retirement than are currently projected and that entitlement program tax receipts will be below current projections. Also, nearly every prediction by the CBO has been revised to the worse over the past year so I am “riding the trend” with this prediction.
Galbraith conducts an introductory inquiry into the basic assumptions behind the economic policy responses of Team Obama, and warns that they fail to come to grips with the severity of the liquidity trap the entire world has now fallen into.
The deepest belief of the modern economist is that the economy is a self-stabilizing system. This means that, even if nothing is done, normal rates of employment and production will someday return. Practically all modern economists believe this. . . The difference between conservatives and liberals is over whether policy can usefully speed things up.
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