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If they can get a handle on "who is in jail or deceased" and avoid sending them checks, maybe they can afford a small check to the rest of retirees and disabled.
When I grew up my parents taught me the old adage that "two wrongs don't make a right".
We live in a large populous country with over 300 million people. Ideally, the SSA or other agencies of our government wouldn't make mistakes in distributing any of the millions of checks it sends to people regularly. The reality is that this isn't possible. Mistakes do get made and the only way to avoid them completely would be to eliminate programs like social security which I and most people are against doing. Machinery does exist to recover benefits that are not owed. I learned this when Dad died and the SSA recovered a check it had to paid to his account before I even knew what had happened.
I'm sorry our politicians periodically give themselves pay raises too. If you don't like this you can vote them out of office in seventeen days. I suspect that a large number are going to be making a one-way trip home from Washington very shortly. All this doesn't change the fact that if you want the best people in government that you have to pay them well. Sometimes I feel we pay well, but don't get the best people. Who's fault is that though? We vote for these people they are not imposed on us by aliens from out of the galaxy.
The COLA has been explained very well by MMofB and others. You can choose to not accept that explanation, but your reasons for doing so are illogical.
The COLA has been explained very well by MMofB and others. You can choose to not accept that explanation, but your reasons for doing so are illogical.
I was well familiar with the COLA since I am disabled. I only pointed out that the S.S. fund (being slowly depleted of it's abilities to pay) also loses money to needless errors. 89,000 errors is a large number.
No matter who is in Congress, they'll get their pay raises.
I saw a political sign yesterday. It said "want change? vote Republican."
As far as COLA, there was a "new" article yesterday. The SSA will announce on Friday Oct. 15th that there will no no raise in 2011. Everyone has assumed that.
The article stated that there will be NO COLA until the CPI is equaly to, or greater than the CPI in the 3rd quarter of 2008. This was not stated that way in previous articles. This one specifically said NO MORE raises until hell freezes over, OR UNTIL inflation goes up, not to 1% or 2% or 2.5%, but the % it was in 3Q 2008.
And Congress does not control that, the law says that. So, why blame the current Congress, blame the Congress that created the law.
Then a small gift of hope. The article said that when Congress comes back from their recess-absence in November, they will be under pressure to approve another $250-$300 rebate to seniors and the disabled.
Let's see, $250/12 = 20.83 per month = 1.9% of the average S.S. benefit, which I think they said was $1070..?..
I'm stating factual information from the article. The article was from government sources and released to the public and found on Yahoo news.
On Oct. 8, a slew of commodity prices -- for wheat, soybeans, corn, coffee, sugar, cocoa, hogs and cattle -- rallied at least 2%, with the first four in that list gaining 4% or better. But not to worry: As long as you don't eat, you probably won't notice food inflation.
On Oct. 8, a slew of commodity prices -- for wheat, soybeans, corn, coffee, sugar, cocoa, hogs and cattle -- rallied at least 2%, with the first four in that list gaining 4% or better. But not to worry: As long as you don't eat, you probably won't notice food inflation.
Food prices, like the commodity prices which precede them, are always going up and down. It remains to be seen whether the increases you pointed out mean anything in the long run. And I'm not saying they don't. I'm just saying that when they go down, nobody bothers to notice or to post about them.
On Oct. 8, a slew of commodity prices -- for wheat, soybeans, corn, coffee, sugar, cocoa, hogs and cattle -- rallied at least 2%, with the first four in that list gaining 4% or better. But not to worry: As long as you don't eat, you probably won't notice food inflation.
Each month when the CPI is released, they give the core CPI which
excludes food and energy.
As Escort Rider said, food prices are volatile.
They report the "core" so you can separate the food-energy from the rest.
"The rest" has been fairly subdued for a good while.
The economy needs "some" inflation, thus the Fed's target of 2%.
Deflation, and dis-inflation, can be worse than a little inflation.
Unfortunately, it's the very "excluded" food and energy, as well as drugs and medical, that hit the hardest for the poor and retired.
Many people are not in the "real economy", and some of the data they release every month comes from a small segment of the population and is distorted due to the group it excludes. An example is the Michigan sentiment survey which is a "phone survey" of about 1000 people. Not much of an indicator, as there is no telling the circumstances of that small group of consumers.
The economy has often done the best when there is "gridlock" in Washington, with no one party in control. Nothing gets done either way.
And nothing is often better than some of the things one side or the other "wants" to do.
well i just heard the fuel price might be rising up close to 5.00 a gallon by summer. that going to hurt whole lot for most people. hopefully that might change for the 2012 ss cola. who know. just have to wait and see.
well i just heard the fuel price might be rising up close to 5.00 a gallon by summer. that going to hurt whole lot for most people. hopefully that might change for the 2012 ss cola. who know. just have to wait and see.
Given my druthers, I'd just as soon not get a COLA and keep gas prices in the $3.00 range.
Ya gotta love the near "fixed income" of retirement. No SS COLA last year and while my wife received a small one from her state pension, I turned out to be in some kind of a "gap" and didn't get squat from the same pension fund. Go figure.
But no complaints (yet). We're still OK. I only wish everyone else was!
well i just heard the fuel price might be rising up close to 5.00 a gallon by summer. that going to hurt whole lot for most people. hopefully that might change for the 2012 ss cola. who know. just have to wait and see.
Read the rest of this thread and you'll see why there may not be a COLA until the Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation, rises ABOVE what is was back in 2008. That is what the government is using to determine if there will be a COLA.
Basically at a time when mnay are facing redcitions in salary its seems that we are i the same boat really. besides I agree that SS is not a salary just as most pensions are not that have COLA.
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