By Cathy Green
It’s been a common complaint for years: “My month outlasts my money.”
It’s said in jest, but there’s serious concern behind those words. As incomes remain the same, outgo continues to rise.
The resulting financial squeeze hits the elderly, many living on fixed incomes, particularly hard. A study by The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan organization representing 1.3 million older Americans, concludes that seniors have lost 40 percent of their buying power since the decade began.
For example, since 2000, the change in your Social Security checks each year, has gone up an average of 22 percent; but that is more than offset by annual hikes totaling 105.49 percent for Medicare Part B premiums.
The Social Security Administration has announced that your checks next year will go up by 2.3 percent, down from this year’s 3.3 percent increase. It’s the smallest increase since 2001, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Medicare premiums, however, will rise about 3.1 percent.
The Senior Citizens League is lobbying for a change in how the Consumer Price Index, used in determining the cost-of-living adjustment, is applied. Currently, the index is based on the spending habits of younger wage-earners, who usually spend less on healthcare than older people do.
The government uses those figures to track older Americans’ spending in its Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers, and wants those figures used in determining the size of your Social Security check. However, some who oppose changing the formula say this index does not count those under 62 who receive Social Security, and that the sample is too small.
In determining its figures, the League tracked seniors’ spending on food, housing, medical costs, transportation and recreation. The difference in the indexes could make quite a difference in the size of Social Security checks.
It will also cost more to keep warm this winter, especially for those with oil heat. The annual winter price forecast of the Energy Information Agency, a unit of the U.S. Department of Energy, predicts a 9.5 percent increase in the cost of natural gas, bringing the average home heating bill nationally to $891 for the winter. Oil heat, it forecasts, will go up 16.3 percent for an average of $1,570.
For more information:
• The Senior Citizens League: http://www.seniorsleague.org
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid: http://www.cms.hhs.gov
• Energy Information Agency: www.eia.doe.gov
• Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: www.kff.org
|