Social Security cost of living increases to vanish
Posted on 12 April 2009
By Mark Miller
Permanent URL of this article: http://retirementrevised.com/money/social-security-cost-of-living-increases-to-shrink
Social Security beneficiaries enjoyed a 5.8 percent cost-of-living (COLA) increase this year, but that was a fluke based on a temporary spike in inflation in the third quarter last year, the period that is used to set the following year’s increase.
New projections from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that no COLA is likely from 2010 through 2012. That would mark the first years without increases since COLAs were introduced in 1975.
One small consolation: beneficiaries will start receiving their one-time $250 economic recovery payments starting in early May and continuing throughout the month. The payments were part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; the bill provides for a one-time payment of $250 to adult Social Security beneficiaries, and to recipients of disability payments, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
