{"id":276682,"date":"2021-06-17T01:58:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T22:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/opinion-social-security-checks-on-track-for-their-biggest-annual-boost-since-2009\/"},"modified":"2021-06-17T01:58:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T22:58:00","slug":"opinion-social-security-checks-on-track-for-their-biggest-annual-boost-since-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/opinion-social-security-checks-on-track-for-their-biggest-annual-boost-since-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"#\n  Opinion: Social Security checks on track for their biggest annual boost since 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a417abf41f5a\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a417abf41f5a\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/opinion-social-security-checks-on-track-for-their-biggest-annual-boost-since-2009\/#47_cost-of-living_adjustment_or_COLA_forecast_by_Senior_Citizens_League\" >4.7% cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, forecast by Senior Citizens League<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-4' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-4'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/opinion-social-security-checks-on-track-for-their-biggest-annual-boost-since-2009\/#Brett_Arends\" >Brett Arends<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#<br \/>\n  Opinion: <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social<\/a> Security checks on track for their biggest annual boost since 2009<br \/>\n<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"article__subhead\" itemprop=\"alternativeHeadline\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"47_cost-of-living_adjustment_or_COLA_forecast_by_Senior_Citizens_League\"><\/span>\n  4.7% cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, forecast by Senior Citizens League<br \/>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"column column--full article__content\">\n<div class=\"article__side\">\n<div class=\"container--sticky not-active\">\n<div id=\"cx-next\">\n              <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"js-article__body\" class=\"article__body article-wrap at16-col16 barrons-article-wrap\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-sbid=\"WP-MKTW-0000307638\">\n<div class=\"barrons-article-ad-wrapper\">\n<div data-track=\"barrons-article-ad-wrap\" class=\"barrons-article-ad sticky_item\">\n<div class=\"barrons-main-article-ad-target sticky_target body_ad\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>       With all the doom and gloom and borderline panic on Wall Street over the alleged threat of inflation, here\u2019s some modestly good <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a> \u2014 if recent trends continue.<\/p>\n<p> <strong>Don\u2019t miss:<\/strong> Fed, alert to risks of higher inflation, now sees two interest-rate hikes in 2023<\/p>\n<p>Social Security recipients may be heading this year for the biggest rise in their monthly checks since the financial crisis over a decade ago.<\/p>\n<div class=\"paywall\">\n       That\u2019s according to the Senior Citizens League, a think tank and advocacy group. Group analyst Mary Johnson told the website <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2021\/05\/12\/social-security-cola-for-2022-expected-to-be-highest-since-2009\/\" class=\"icon none\">ThinkAdvisor<\/a> that based on recent trends Social Security beneficiaries may be looking at a 4.7% cost-of-living-adjustment for 2022 when the announcement is made in October.<\/p>\n<p>That would be way ahead of this year\u2019s 1.3% rise; last year\u2019s 1.6%; or the average for the last decade, which was less than 1.4% a year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read:<\/strong> Do retirees need to be worried about inflation?<\/p>\n<p>Of course the numbers need to be treated with caution: The annual cost-of-living adjustment, first enacted by Congress in 1972, is designed solely to maintain purchasing power. It\u2019s not a \u201craise\u201d in real, spendable terms.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it may not work like that in practice. The cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, are based on a specific inflation measure, tailored to the alleged typical shopping basket of working-age white-collar workers living in cities. But many senior citizens may find that they spend their money differently from a 30-year-old office worker in New York or even Minneapolis.<\/p>\n<p>They may, for example, spend less on cars and clothes \u2014 and tequila shots on Friday night \u2014 and more on medical care, pre<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">script<\/a>ion drugs and (eventually) nursing homes.<\/p>\n<p>The government also tracks an experimental index of inflation for older Americans. Among the interesting factors: In the past 12 months, while prices across the economy are up 5%, the government\u2019s data say medical costs are up just 1%. (If you don\u2019t agree, don\u2019t write to me to complain, write to U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. It\u2019s his department that produces these numbers.)<\/p>\n<div id=\"cx-membership-tile\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>See:<\/strong> New to Medicare? How to use the star rating system<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, here\u2019s one big factor they never tell you about when they are trying to scare you about \u201crunaway inflation.\u201d The official figures are dominated by the costs of homeownership. The government assumes\u00a0that\u00a0those\u00a0white-collar urban workers spend 30% of their annual budget on renting or owning a home, and the elderly pay 36%. These numbers are on top of utility bills.<\/p>\n<p>And yet for calculating the costs of your home they don\u2019t use real numbers. They use subjective, made-up numbers called \u201cowner\u2019s equivalent rent.\u201d They try to guess what you would have to pay if you were renting your own home.<\/p>\n<p>Senior citizens who own their own homes, or \u2014 just as important \u2014 live in a part of the country where real estate is cheaper may find their own inflation rates differ from those produced by the government. For that matter, while housing costs are rising, anyone who has taken advantage of low interest rates in the past year to refinance a mortgage has seen their actual cash costs fall \u2014 no matter what the \u201cowner\u2019s equivalent rent\u201d may say.<\/p>\n<p>None of this means that each Social Security beneficiary will be a net winner or loser from the inflation calculations, simply that\u00a0it\u2019s more\u00a0complicated than it might seem. If my mortgage costs me 20% less per month, but my Social Security check goes up 5%, I\u2019ll be better off, not worse.<\/p>\n<p>Mind you, all of this may be moot. Although inflation fears have been rising in the past month, the key financial barometer isn\u2019t impressed. When it comes to inflation forecasts, the real numbers to watch aren\u2019t the consumer price index or the producer price index but the bond market\u2019s predictions. Because some U.S. Treasury bonds are protected against inflation and some aren\u2019t, bond traders stand to make trillions if they can successfully predict what\u2019s going to happen to prices. The resulting inflation forecasts from the bond market aren\u2019t perfect, but they are the best we have, and worth far more than all the empty air on TV.<\/p>\n<p>And right now those forecasts are going down, not up. They were surging earlier in the year, to be sure. But the five-year inflation forecast, for example, is now 2.44%. That\u2019s down from 2.72% a month ago. It\u2019s the same story for the 10-year forecast. It made more sense to be worried about inflation a few months ago, when the numbers were heading up. But unless they turn around and start charging higher again, there seems little reason to panic.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"byline article__byline\">\n<p>      <span>By<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"author  hasMenu\" data-scrim='{\"type\":\"author\",\"header\":\"Brett Arends\",\"subhead\":\"The Wall Street Journal\",\"list\":[]}' itemscope itemprop=\"author\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/Person\">\n<h4 itemprop=\"name\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Brett_Arends\"><\/span>Brett Arends<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/news\/story.asp?guid=%7B20C05575-04D4-B545-74B1-B6F265FEBBB2%7D&#038;siteid=rss&#038;rss=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;# Opinion: Social Security checks on track for their biggest annual boost since 2009 &#8221; 4.7% cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, forecast by Senior Citizens League With all the doom and gloom and borderline panic on Wall Street over the alleged threat of inflation, here\u2019s some modestly good news \u2014 if recent trends continue. Don\u2019t miss:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":276683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}