This week the Social Security Administration announced beneficiaries will receive an 8.7% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the year 2023. This is the largest COLA in 40 years, thanks in large part to the Biden Administration’s pro-inflation policies enacted over the last 20 months.
Seniors living on fixed incomes have been bombarded with double digit increases in food, gasoline, and household living expenses since the beginning of the Biden administration. In addition, multiple analyses have shown that both Social Security and Medicare are on the path towards imminent insolvency by this increased inflation. Below is a list of inflation rates for common products:
- 33.1% utility gas
- 30.5% eggs
- 18.2% gasoline
- 17.2% chicken
- 15.7% coffee
- 15.2% milk
- 14.7% bread
- 9.2% vegetables
A recent Social Security Trustees’ report predicted the the OASDI trust fund would become insolvent in 2034 based on a significantly lower COLA for 2023. This high Biden-flation caused COLA combined with the decreasing size of the workforce (another Biden administration accomplishment), will cause a decrease in benefits for current and future retirees sooner than expected. The current model predicts a 23% cut in benefits in about a decade, the increased expenses will likely move that date up by at least a year.
Congressional Republicans have been pushing for a bipartisan effort to ensure long-term solvency for the trust fund, however Democrats have been pushing partisan tax increases and attempts to turn the program from a poverty prevention program into a government pension. AMAC Action supports Republicans efforts to find a bipartisan solution and have proposed the Social Security Guarantee to ensure all beneficiaries receive a COLA while helping those most in need to escape poverty and extend solvency to protect all beneficiaries from receiving crippling cuts to their monthly benefit.