Social Security makes it official: No cost of living adjustment (COLA) in 2010

In the October 15, 2009 article "No Social Security COLA could prod $250 payments," Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher reports:

WASHINGTON – Social Security recipients won't get a cost-of-living increase next year for the first time in more than a third of a century, and that could boost President Barack Obama's plan to send seniors another round of $250 payments before the congressional elections.

Democratic leaders in Congress have signed onto the plan, greatly improving its chances, even as some budget hawks say the payments are unwarranted and could add to the federal budget deficit. Republican leaders said they, too, favor the payments but don't want to increase the deficit to pay for them.

More than 50 million Social Security recipients will see no increase in their monthly payments next year, the government said Thursday, the first year without an increase since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.

Blame it on falling consumer prices. By law, cost-of-living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which is negative this year because of lower energy costs. Social Security payments do not go down, even when prices drop.

Social Security recipients at a senior center in Pembroke Pines, Fla., a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, took it in stride that come January they won't see an increase in their benefits.

"At my age, I've got a nice bedroom, I have clothes, I have anything I want, I got a walker, what else do I need?" said Marie Arrasate, 83, who ran a restaurant and candy shop with her husband in Washingtonville, N.Y., and now lives with her daughter in Pembroke Pines.

"You have to make do with whatever you get. What are you gonna do? You can't do nothing about it," said Ed Nunez, 69, a retired truck driver from Miami.

The White House said the stimulus payments would cost $13 billion, though a congressional estimate put the cost at $14 billion. Obama didn't say how the payments should be financed, leaving that up to Congress. The president is open to borrowing the money, increasing the federal deficit, just as Congress did with the first round of stimulus payments.

Government analysts have been forecasting for months that there would be no increase next year in monthly Social Security payments because of falling consumer prices. In anticipation of Thursday's announcement, Obama said Wednesday he supported $250 payments to about 57 million senior citizens, veterans, retired railroad workers and people with disabilities.

Seniors groups applauded the proposal, saying the recession has reduced home values and diminished retirement funds. Recipients would be limited to one payment, even if they qualified in more than one category.

"Without relief, millions of older Americans will be unable to afford skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs, as well as other basic necessities," said Tom Nelson, chief operating officer for AARP.

The payments would match the ones issued to seniors earlier this year as part of the government's economic recovery package. They would be equal to about a 2 percent increase for the average Social Security recipient.

Social Security has been the backbone of the nation's safety net for older Americans since it was enacted in the 1930s. Together with Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, it helps keep millions of seniors out of poverty.

The poverty rate for U.S. residents 65 and older is below the rates for other age groups and has been for much of the past two decades. In 2008, the rate for seniors was 9.7 percent, according to the Census Bureau. That same year it was 11.7 percent for 18-to-64-year-olds and 19 percent for minors.

The average monthly Social Security payment for all recipients is $1,094.

Some Social Security experts say recipients shouldn't get a raise or an extra payment next year because their purchasing power has already increased with falling consumer prices.

They note that Social Security payments increased by 5.8 percent this year, the biggest rise since 1982, largely because of a spike in energy prices in 2008.

Over the past 12 months, gasoline prices have fallen 29.7 percent, and overall energy costs have decreased 21.6 percent, the Labor Department said Thursday. Consumer prices in general have declined 2.1 percent since the third quarter of 2008. The cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, or COLA, is based on the change in consumer prices from the third quarter of one year to the next.

"The real purchasing power of their benefits is actually higher today than it was last year," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Nevertheless, there will be a big political price to pay if no COLA is granted," Biggs said.

Obama's proposal has picked up support from key members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said he wanted to use unspent funds from last year's stimulus legislation to offset the cost.

Advocates for seniors argue that they deserve a raise because they spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on health care costs, which rise faster than other consumer prices.

"Any senior living in the real world knows that the cost of living has gone up over the last year," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

Obama's plan also picked up an endorsement from Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, who was appointed to a six-year term by former President George W. Bush.

The lack of a monthly increase in payments triggers several provisions in the law. Among them, the amount of wages subject to Social Security payroll taxes will remain unchanged. The first $106,800 of a worker's earned income is currently subject to the tax.

Also, Medicare Part B premiums for the vast majority of Social Security recipients will remain frozen at 2009 levels. However, premiums for the Medicare prescription drug program, known as Part D, will increase.

No Increase for Social Security

In the September 24, 2009 SmartMoney article "Social Security's New Math," Lisa Scherzer reports that Social Security payments in 2010 will not have the usual cost of living increase:

Come January 2010, seniors may do a double take after seeing their Social Security checks. The two to three percentage-point increase in benefits they usually get each year won’t be there.

That’s because, for the first time in three decades, there likely won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA). “People notice when their checks don’t change, says Bruce Meyer, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

In the context of degraded home prices and investment losses, the change will feel like a loss to many seniors, even though benefit amounts for 2010 won’t shrink. Social Security benefits are adjusted every year to keep up with inflation, so that seniors can retain their purchasing power. Adjustments are based on the consumer price index for urban wage earners (CPI-W) between the third quarter (July-September) of the previous year and the third quarter of the current year. The 2010 COLA will be based on a period marked by sharp drops in prices and deflation.

Democratic lawmakers are trying to lessen the perceived pain. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D., N.Y.) introduced legislation last week that would provide a one-time $150 payment for Social Security beneficiaries to compensate for the lack of an adjustment.

Still, anxious seniors should keep in mind that they will actually come out ahead of inflation. “In a sense, older people are going to do fine because the cost of living is down and they’re not going to have their benefits cut,” says John Laitner, the director of the Retirement Research Center at the University of Michigan.

Here is the good and bad about a flat COLA.

Reasons to Fret

Next COLA increase will be in 2012: Not only won’t seniors receive an adjustment for 2010, but the Social Security and Medicare Trustees project no cost of living adjustment for 2011 and only a modest 1.4% increase in 2012. That means seniors won’t see higher payments until 2012. Of course, the Trustees report is a forecast, and next year’s report, which will take into account new data, could be revised.

Rising health-care costs: Older people get hit more by rising health-care costs than younger people do, says Pamela Herd, an associate professor of public affairs and sociology at the University of Wisconsin. That’s because seniors are disproportionate users of the health-care system and pay about 20% higher out-of-pocket health care costs than does the rest of the population. So while inflation hasn’t really been a concern, health-care costs are increasingly eating into seniors’ Social Security checks.

Higher Medicare premiums for some: Medicare Part B premiums have increased almost every year to keep pace with the growth in Part B expenditures. (Part B insurance helps pay for some services not covered by Part A, generally on an outpatient basis.)

For most of the 42 million Part B beneficiaries, the amount of the monthly Social Security COLA each year has been more than enough to offset the increase in the Part B premium – resulting in net increases in benefits, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But next year and in 2011, about 8% of Part B beneficiaries will be subject to higher premiums, sums that will be deducted from their Social Security payments. According to Kaiser, they'll pay $104.20 a month in 2010 and $120.20 in 2011, up from $96.40 this year.

On the Upside

The benefit bump: Social Security beneficiaries got an atypically large 5.8% increase in benefits in 2009 – the biggest in more than 25 years. That outsize increase was primarily because of 2008’s spike in oil prices, says Laitner. But since then the CPI increase was lost as energy prices fell. It was an excessively high COLA that raised the purchasing power of seniors’ benefits, actually putting them “ahead where they should be,” says Andrew Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit public policy group.

Seniors are better off than most: While the poverty rate increased from 2007 to 2008 and median household income fell, both indicators remained statistically unchanged for people 65 and older, according to last week’s Census report. “So the official data say that group is doing quite well – and all those numbers predated the 5.8% increase in Social Security benefits” this year, says Meyer of the University of Chicago.

Millions face shrinking Social Security payments

According to the August 23, 2009 article "Millions face shrinking Social Security payments," Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher says:

WASHINGTON – Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn't happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.

By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.

"I will promise you, they count on that COLA," said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who now heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. "To some people, it might not be a big deal. But to seniors, especially with their health care costs, it is a big deal."

Cost of living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year, largely because energy prices are below 2008 levels.

Advocates say older people still face higher prices because they spend a disproportionate amount of their income on health care, where costs rise faster than inflation. Many also have suffered from declining home values and shrinking stock portfolios just as they are relying on those assets for income.

"For many elderly, they don't feel that inflation is low because their expenses are still going up," said David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP. "Anyone who has savings and investments has seen some serious losses."

About 50 million retired and disabled Americans receive Social Security benefits. The average monthly benefit for retirees is $1,153 this year. All beneficiaries received a 5.8 percent increase in January, the largest since 1982.

More than 32 million people are in the Medicare prescription drug program. Average monthly premiums are set to go from $28 this year to $30 next year, though they vary by plan. About 6 million people in the program have premiums deducted from their monthly Social Security payments, according to the Social Security Administration.

Millions of people with Medicare Part B coverage for doctors' visits also have their premiums deducted from Social Security payments. Part B premiums are expected to rise as well. But under the law, the increase cannot be larger than the increase in Social Security benefits for most recipients.

There is no such hold-harmless provision for drug premiums.

Kennelly's group wants Congress to increase Social Security benefits next year, even though the formula doesn't call for it. She would like to see either a 1 percent increase in monthly payments or a one-time payment of $150.

The cost of a one-time payment, a little less than $8 billion, could be covered by increasing the amount of income subjected to Social Security taxes, Kennelly said. Workers only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,800 of income, a limit that rises each year with the average national wage.

But the limit only increases if monthly benefits increase.

Critics argue that Social Security recipients shouldn't get an increase when inflation is negative. They note that recipients got a big increase in January — after energy prices had started to fall. They also note that Social Security recipients received one-time $250 payments in the spring as part of the government's economic stimulus package.

Consumer prices are down from 2008 levels, giving Social Security recipients more purchasing power, even if their benefits stay the same, said Andrew G. Biggs, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

"Seniors may perceive that they are being hurt because there is no COLA, but they are in fact not getting hurt," Biggs said. "Congress has to be able to tell people they are not getting everything they want."

Social Security is also facing long-term financial problems. The retirement program is projected to start paying out more money than it receives in 2016. Without changes, the retirement fund will be depleted in 2037, according to the Social Security trustees' annual report this year.

President Barack Obama has said he would like tackle Social Security next year, after Congress finishes work on health care, climate change and new financial regulations.

Lawmakers are preoccupied by health care, making it difficult to address other tough issues. Advocates for older people hope their efforts will get a boost in October, when the Social Security Administration officially announces that there will not be an increase in benefits next year.

"I think a lot of seniors do not know what's coming down the pike, and I believe that when they hear that, they're going to be upset," said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who is working on a proposal for one-time payments for Social Security recipients.

"It is my view that seniors are going to need help this year, and it would not be acceptable for Congress to simply turn its back," he said.
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On the Net:
Social Security Administration: http://www.ssa.gov/
National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare: http://www.ncpssm.org