Up, Up and Away

Sometimes I wonder just how stupid our political leaders think we are. Case in point…

“Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” the White House tweeted Monday.

Seniors are not getting an ‘increase’ in anything. The purchasing power of their Social Security checks FELL 8.7% during 2022, based on the CPI. The ‘increase’ simply restores the purchasing power to what it was at the start of the year.

The increases are automatic and required by current law, so President Biden’s ‘leadership’ had nothing to do with it.

An accompanying note from Twitter states “readers added context”. When they finally stopped laughing.

Flash Update! This just happened as I was writing: That tweet disappeared without an explanation from the White House by early Wednesday afternoon.

Even the Administration is embarrassed. I hope they are more careful tweeting about Russia and China.

The great thing about stupid tweets is that once they are released someone is going to copy them and bring them into public view. But there is a chance that Facebook, which is where I share my blog with the world, will ban this one. So if you don’t subscribe to my blog via e mail, why not do so? WordPress doesn’t censor.

Stoker and I receive Social Security payments, which constitute a small portion of our income. The increase is welcome and will help offset increases in Medicare and supplemental medical insurance, PGE and propane costs, food and gasoline prices, and keep the Côtes du Rhône vin rouge supply topped up. My favorite bottle was $6.00 at the start of 2022, and today it is $7.50. That is a 25% jump, so the SSI COLA is going to need some assistance from IRA withdrawals.

Defined benefit pensions have become less common than they once were, but public employees and some large companies and non-profits still have them. And most of the pensions have COLA’s built in. But those COLA’s are virtually always capped at 1.5 to 2% per annum. If you depend on a pension your purchasing power starting 2023 is down over 6% even after the COLA, which means you need to eat 6% less, drive 6% less, travel 6% less, etc. You get the idea.

Actually eating 6% less might be a good thing for me. I could lose a few pounds and ride uphill a little faster. I knew there was a bright side to hyperinflation somewhere.