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What did happen on October 11, 2010 was the fact that the COLA freeze for 58 million people was announced. And because of how the congress has chosen to measure the supposed cost of living: they found that for the last two years there has been NO INCREASE in those costs. However despite this, the congress did vote themselves a COLA in the senate of $5,300 and in the House it was $ 4,700. Clearly Congress felt they owed themselves a cost of living increase while the 58 million Social Security recipients were denied any increase at all.
In addition to freezing the cost-of-living increase: Here are some of the other costs that this congress did NOT address! "Your Medicare premiums will go up $285.60 for the 2-years You will not get the 3% COLA: $660/yr. Your total 2-yr loss and cost is -$1,600 or -$3,200 for husband and wife. Over these same 2-years each Congress person will get $10,000 Do you feel BETRAYED? Will your cost of drugs, doctor fees, local taxes, food, etc., decrease? NO WAY. Congress received a raise and has better health and retirement benefits than you or I have. And they are not covered by Social Security because they have something really fantastic, just for them! Why should they care about you or me? You never did anything about it in the past did you? Obviously they believe we are simply too stupid or just don't care. Do you really think that Nancy, Harry, Chris, Charlie, Barney, et al care about you?"
Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
I hope that SENIORS remember this come Election Day.
Initial post is incorrect. The lack of a "Cost of Living Adjustment" (COLA) is the result of a Republican decision, some years back, to create the COLA from the rate of inflation from a few months of the year which have long been known to have the least inflation, rather than the whole year. Also interesting is that the cost of health care for those on Social Security (Premiums, copays) increases every year.
The prices of 95,000 items from 22,000 stores, and 35,000 rental units are added together and averaged. They are weighted this way: Housing: 41.4%, Food and Beverage: 17.4%, Transport: 17.0%, Medical Care: 6.9%, Other: 6.9%, Apparel: 6.0%, Entertainment: 4.4%. Taxes (43%) are not included in CPI computation.[2]