The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College has released a brief report on the effects if a "Chained CPI" were substituted for the Consumer Price Index in computing Social Security's Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). The key findings:
- The chained index, which allows spending patterns to shift as prices change, would rise more slowly than the current index.
- The current index likely understates the inflation faced by the elderly, and the low-income elderly may have little flexibility.
- Moving to a chained CPI would be a cut in benefits
that's the point.
ReplyDeleteIt does not make a lot of difference, if one beleives that the "goverment" is "cooking the books" with all of their public statistics and has been doing so for mahy years.
ReplyDeleteFor example, "the is no inflation" (for increase in SSA payments) but somehow supermarket and household expences keep climbing with no change in lifestyle.