South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute explains why switching to a chained measure of consumer prices for the purposes of determining cost of living adjustments to Social Security benefits is unfair to seniors.

No supercommittee member should be allowed to pretend that using the chained CPI to determine Social Security COLAs is a ‘technical’ change to increase their accuracy. It is a benefit cut, pure and simple, and it will do the greatest harm to the oldest of the elderly. Under the proposed COLA, an average-wage worker retiring this year would, in 2031, receive $1,754 less in annual benefits.