Senior News Line: Social Security increase for 2024

The 3.2% Social Security increase for 2024 is higher than it has averaged over the past two decades, but it certainly is nowhere near the 8.7% increase we received for 2023.

This 2024 increase will mean $58 more per month for those receiving the average benefit in 2023. Out of that $58, we’ll pay an additional $10 for Medicare Part B.

How do they get these increase numbers every year? They get these numbers by comparing this year’s third quarter to that of the previous year and do a cost of living adjustment, or COLA, based on that.

They also use the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, to calculate what they call a “basket of goods and services.”

Therein lies our problem. While that index is no doubt useful for those who have to set financial policy for the country, the CPI-W index they use to calculate our Social Security benefit isn’t geared to seniors.

Instead, that index is geared toward blue collar — hourly — wage earners for 200 items and is broken down into eight groups: medical care, housing, food and beverage, transportation, housing, apparel, education and communication, and other goods and services.

You can see immediately why that doesn’t work for seniors. We have vastly different medical costs, approximately double.

Our housing costs are not the same. Transportation isn’t the same, and neither are apparel, education or any of the others.

Another price index, however, the Consumer Price Index for Americans 62 years of age and older, R-CPI-E, considers the differences between the two groups — but they still don’t use the “E” index to calculate our Social Security.

Why is that, we wonder? I bet our representatives and senators in Congress would know the answer if we call them.