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DeFazio and Sanders Propose Adding $200/Month to Social Security Checks, Paid for with Tax on Pay Above $250K

Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds voted against helping sick veterans yesterday, so they probably won’t support helping senior citizens weather inflation, either.

The 8%+ inflation rates of the last three months are eroding the purchasing power of Social Security checks, which got a 5.9% cost-of-living adjustment for 2022. Democratic Congressman Pete DeFazio of Oregon and independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont would like to solve that problem by sending Social Security recipients another $2,400 a year:

The new bill would seek to lessen the strain on people collecting Social Security by boosting each recipient’s monthly check by $200 — an annual increase of $2,400 [Aimee Picchi, “Social Security Bill Would Give Seniors an Extra $2,400 a Year. Here’s How It Would Work,” CBS News, 2022.06.16].

…doing more accurate economic math:

One of the primary changes would be to base the annual COLA on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E), rather than the current index that the Social Security Administration uses for its calculation — the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).

The CPI-E more accurately reflects seniors’ spending patterns, according to experts on Social Security. For instance, it puts more weight on health care expenses, which can be considerable for senior citizens.

If the CPI-E had been used to index the annual COLA for Social Security, a senior who filed for Social Security benefits over 30 years ago would have received about $14,000 more in retirement than compared with the CPI-W, according to the Senior Citizens League [Picchi, 2022.06.16].

…and paying for it:

The bill would also make several additional changes to the program, including buttressing the program’s funding by applying the Social Security payroll tax on all income above $250,000. Currently, earnings above $147,000 aren’t subject to the Social Security tax.

…Only the top 7% of earners would see their taxes go up as a result, according to DeFazio [Picchi, 2022.06.16].

Alas, Senator Thune’s idea of social security is having an AR-15 to shoot varmints. I don’t think we can count on either him or Rounds to offer any solutions as practical as DeFazio and Sanders are offering to help seniors now and pay for it.

7 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2022-06-17 11:30

    My 5.9% cola amounted to 20 bucks, plus IUdropped BC/BS prescription insurance for one named after Walmart which has nothing to do with the store. That gave me another 60 bucks per month minus slightly higher prescriptions cost. I am having to shave the rims off pennies to keep from spending more than my check each month.

    Propane prices remain high, like they were last winter. I even got a 200 dollar boost in fuel assistance and still spent more out of pocket for heat. Something is seriously wrong when gas can doub le in cost because of 8% inflation.

  2. mike from iowa 2022-06-17 11:31

    All consumers are getting the shaft. If Roe falls expect magat goons to test everyone to see if they are preggers!

  3. Donald Pay 2022-06-17 13:24

    Many seniors could use a bump up in our SS payments, for sure. As the post explains, the formula they use low-balls the annual cost of living adjustment for our age group. A lot of folks have little more than their SS payment to survive on. We are lucky to have found good employment with pensions and 401K’s when we moved out of South Dakota, so we have a bit of a cushion. What’s worrying us now is how low will the stock market go. I bought in on some pretty safe sector ETFs yesterday on what I hope was the low late yesterday,

  4. Allen Jeris 2022-06-17 13:59

    You could always give these people the same advice that some on this blog give to other select groups of people. “Pay up”

  5. Arlo Blundt 2022-06-17 15:05

    Maybe we could fund a significant portion of a Social Security increase if we required all the cheaters on the COVID Emergency funds to pay the money back with interest. Those who did could avoid jail. So says my wife, who squeezes the buffalo.

  6. Arlo Blundt 2022-06-17 16:47

    Well, Donald, I hope the ETF’s pay off for you. I’m thinking the market will auger in until it’s under 25,000…maybe 20. The “shorts” are out to get their money back…they always do. I’m partially in a fund that seems to play the “short” game though after years of mediocre earnings I wonder if, like me, they don’t really understand the mechanics and indices of playing that end of the market…I give no advice…I’m a pretty passive player. At the age now when many old friends are dying off at an alarming rate. Some leave a generous estate to their unappreciative children, some leave this vale of tears with one hell of a garage sale. As my father used to say, and as even Old Grudz would agree, “Naked we come, Naked we go.”

  7. Mark Anderson 2022-06-18 06:56

    Well Arlo, we went to and bought at a neighborhood “estate sale”, the house was decorated as is and wonderfully. The children obviously didn’t care. It was more like Zorba the Greek than anything, excepting the dying woman in the bed was already dead. Makes me wonder about leaving the list of valuables, why bother.

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