Grayson says change to Social Security calculations needed

It looks like muted prices for no Social Security hike for the cost of living adjustment are being justified for at least another month (followed by more ahead).

Seventy percent of Medicare beneficiaries will not see any change in premiums for Part B coverage of doctor visits and other outpatient care. The objective of this “hold harmless” provision is to prevent a reduction in Social Security benefits.

The main reason for no increase next year is low gas prices.

Jake Epstein, 76, of Red Lion, explains on Thursday that at one time, Social Security increases were equal to the cost of living increase each year.

“While Social Security usually provides automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments, extremely low inflation in 2015 led to a benefit freeze”, AP correspondent Jerry Bodlander reports.

“This is about more than just money, it is about basic fairness”, said Richard Thissen, president of the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees, in a statement.

There are a number of creative ways for Congress to address this problem, but they would all cost money – up to $7 billion, according to estimates – and would require bipartisan cooperation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics arrives at the numbers by looking at a range of goods and services and determines whether the prices have gone up. “A lot of people in here wouldn’t be getting a good meal every day if it wasn’t for the senior center”. California alone could be facing $550 million in new costs, according to Modern Healthcare.

It would affect about 30 percent of Medicare Part B recipients – the rest are protected from paying a higher premium under the program’s “hold harmless” provision.

“The whole idea that the increase is based on gasoline, it doesn’t seem right”, said Diana Profant of Sarasota. An introduction of the bill is planned for later this month.

The Social Security Administration announced Thursday that monthly payments will not increase for the almost 65 million Americans who receive Social Security and Supplemental Security Income. Nancy LeaMond writes, “Social Security recipients spend more of their monthly budget on health care, food and housing than do younger workers”.

The Social Security Administration also pays out disability benefits to those who cannot work, as well as to certain survivors after a beneficiary dies.

“The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment is supposed to protect benefits from being eroded due to inflation”, says Romina Boccia, deputy director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

But in the past decade, the cost-of-living adjustment has been that big only once. They have been paid in most years – 2016 is only the third year of no increase since COLAs were adopted in the mid-1970s.

For instance, there will be no increase in the amount of earnings subject to wage taxes – the Social Security cap will remain at $118,500.