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John,
This morning, the Social Security Administration announced that Social Security will receive a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA, for short) of 3.2% next year to maintain the buying power of our earned benefits.1
The amount is determined automatically by a formula, every year. And while it may sound like a benefit increase, it’s not. The COLA allows Social Security benefits to keep up with rising prices, maintaining seniors’ buying power. The automatic nature of COLA increases protects seniors from politicians like Donald Trump who seek to diminish or destroy our Social Security system.
Social Security Works. Period. We’re fighting to keep it that way―by EXPANDING benefits, never cutting them. Chip in $7 today!
Republicans in the House of Representatives just deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he failed to deliver a commission to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits―and the presumed successor, Rep. Steve Scalise, has already pledged to support such a commission.2
The last time a commission was convened, one of the centerpiece proposals was making the COLA less generous, squeezing seniors even further. If that proposal had become law, the average Social Security beneficiary would lose out on $28,000 in lifetime benefits.3
Food, health care, and housing represent a larger share of seniors’ budgets but are under-represented in the current COLA formula. Instead of cutting Social Security behind closed doors, Congress should meet in public and EXPAND Social Security and improve the COLA formula to better reflect the real expenses seniors face.
The Social Security 2100 Act (co-sponsored by 179 House Democrats) would do just that—as would the Social Security Expansion Act (co-sponsored by 10 Democratic Senators).
Fuel our fight to expand our Social Security system today, and protect it from cuts!
Thank you,
Alex Lawson
Social Security Works
1 https://www.ssa.gov/cola/
2 https://twitter.com/josephzeballos/status/1712225037132922995
3 https://socialsecurityworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/updated-chained-cpi-chart.jpg
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