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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RJA_ who wrote (100258)	4/21/2013 10:03:17 AM
From: bart13	Respond to of 219662

Our work shows that the new proposed C-CPI-U as an inflation adjustment for Social Security recipients (replacing CPI-W) will decrease the payment adjustment by just under 1/2 of 1% (.43% average since 2000). The BLS on the C-CPI-U (key phrase - "The use of expenditure data for both a base period and the current period in order to average price change across item categories distinguishes the C-CPI-U from the existing CPI measures".) ------------------- The simplest evidence that CPI substantially understates inflation is the decrease in standard of living and purchasing power of seniors who have lived for a few years with their total income only based on Social Security payments. In simpler terms, anyone who believes that the CPI is accurate needs to look at how much the actual standard of living of those living only on Social Security has dropped over the last 5-10 years, when using real apples to apples comparisons. The late 2012 proposal to use "Chained CPI" instead of CPI-W for Social Security inflation adjustments is yet another proof for the doubters that the Boskin Commissions adjustments in 1998-9 had the same purposes - understate the real inflation rate to save money, at the expense of stable purchasing power for seniors on Social Security. ----------------- On the new proposed Chained CPI, it boils down to "likely that the current COLA fails to keep up with rising costs confronting elderly and disabled beneficiaries." (Source: Economic Policy Institute) "... if accuracy were the only motive for changing COLA, it would be relatively easy to get a full, chained version of the index of prices faced by the elderly and use that. That has not been proposed."