Disparities Policy Fact Sheet Health Coverage In An Economic Downturn ImpactWhen the COLA does not accurately or adequately reflect the costs that retired and disabled people actually have, the buying power of Social Security benefits erodes over time. A study by TSCL has found that Social Security benefits have lost 30 percent of their buying power since 2000..The big difference between the CPI-W used to calculate your COLA, and the CPI-E, is the weight or portion of income that the Bureau of Labor Statistics gives to each category. While seniors occasionally benefit from the heavier weighting of transportation costs and food costs under the CPI-W when food and gasoline prices spike, in the majority of years they fall behind due to the lower weighting of medical care..Will higher-income workers pay their fair share of taxes to Social Security? … Continued
Health CostsSome of the most talked-about plans using a "chained" consumer price index to calculate annual cost-of-living adjustments, cutting the payroll tax, and reducing benefits for people who are currently retired or nearing retirement would devastate many of the most vulnerable seniors..Most of the money that Social Security pays out to current beneficiaries comes from payroll taxes. According to the Social Security Trustees, the program received 5.1 billion in payroll taxes in 201Social Security also received an estimated .9 billion from the taxation of Social Security benefits, and .9 billion in interest was earned on special issue non-marketable bonds held by the trust fund last year..Social Security coverage to persons who have not worked long enough under the system to draw benefits on their own account is of major significance in the debate to allow individuals to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes into private retirement accounts. As proposed, private Social Security retirement accounts would unlikely be able to provide the extent of coverage the current program now offers. … Continued
