President Trump's Government Cutbacks Could Be a Serious Problem for Next Year's Social Security COLA

One of the most important features of Social Secuirty is the annual cost-of-living adjustment. The program is designed to ensure the pension paid out to tens of millions of seniors each month keeps up with the rising costs of goods and services.Even with the annual bump in benefits, seniors are still finding it hard to keep up with higher prices at the doctor's office or the grocery store. The purchasing power of seniors' benefits has declined by 20% since 2010, according to a study from The Senior Citizens League. That's largely due to a discrepancy between how the government measures inflation and how seniors experience inflation in real life.And the challenge may have just gotten worse due to cutbacks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the department in charge of collecting Consumer Price Index (CPI) survey data, from the Trump administration. That could result in a 2026 COLA that doesn't accurately reflect the true increase in the cost of living for seniors, further weakening the purchasing power of that monthly Social Security deposit.Continue readingWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei MotleyFool