Sep 18, 2016

0.3% COLA Coming?

     A reporter figures that Social Security's Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) for this year will be 0.3%. I'd say that the margin of error on this prediction is no more than a tenth of one percent.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The COLA will be determined on October 18 with the release of the September CPI-W. If that is the same as the August value, then the increase in the CPI-W from July-September 2014 to July-September 2016 will be 0.27%, which will be rounded to 0.3% to give the COLA. If the September CPI-W is higher than the August one, then about one-third of the percentage increase will be added to the 0.27% (and if it is lower, one-third will be subtracted). Since the CPI-W normally changes only a few tenths of a percent each month, a value between 0.2% and 0.4% is likely. However, bigger changes in the CPI-W are not that rare, so values from 0 to 0.6% are still possible.

Anonymous said...

The recent 5% increase in median household income would suggest a measurable increase in cost of living is coming. If not this year, then the next.

Anonymous said...

The COLA is calculated off of the wrong index. It is not a realistic index with the goods and services used by those on DIB and RIB with such a heavy slant toward medical and pharmacy. Those prices increased more than the COLA as well as rent, food and those pesky survival things.