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In the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the first generation of drugs was mediocre at best, he said. As scientists learned more about the virus and the disease it causes, the medicines became more effective. That may be a model for what we are going to have here. We may not get the best vaccine up front. But hopefully it will be good enough and will be replaced later by better vaccines. We have may just have to live with that until we get a better one..To find out how much your benefits would be reduced, use the Social Security Administration's Retirement Test Calculator at..The income thresholds that subject up to 50 percent of Social Security benefits to tax start at provisional incomes of ,000 and ,000. A second tier taxes up to 85% of benefits when individual provisional income exceeds ,000, and joint exceeds ,000. If the thresholds were adjusted to today's dollars the ,000 threshold would be about ,107 and the ,000 would be about ,097 according an analysis for TSCL..This week, Members of Congress continued working on a .1 trillion spending bill to fund the federal government past December 11th. Lawmakers in the Senate passed a five-day continuing resolution on Thursday afternoon to buy more time for the negotiations. At the time of writing this week's update, those in the House had not yet passed the stopgap funding bill, but they are expected to overwhelmingly vote in its favor before midnight on December 11th, and President Obama has already said he will sign the short-term fix into law..But in 2020 COVID-19 dramatically proved Flo wrong. It took the pandemic to demonstrate what our nation can achieve when our government gets into the medicine cabinet and "partners" with drug manufacturers. We witnessed the record setting development and production of not just of one, but multiple, life-saving new vaccines from several pharmaceutical manufacturers..On Tuesday, Senate lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill to begin the second session of the 115th Congress. Those in the House remained in their home districts for the week and are expected to return to Washington on Monday, January 8th..Those participating in The Senior Citizens League's annual senior survey, which is still being conducted, confirm that monthly household expenses made steep increases over the past year, far in excess of the dollar amount that their COLAs increased benefits. The 2.8 percent COLA raised the average Social Security benefit of ,400 by about per month this year. Yet more than 78 percent of survey participants report that their household spending rose by more than .00 per month in 201"When costs climb more rapidly than benefits, retirees must spend down retirement savings more quickly than expected, and those without savings or other retirement income are either going into debt, or going without," Johnson says..Although the annual adjustment is provided to protect the buying power of Social Security payments, beneficiaries report a growing disparity between the amount of benefit boosts they receive and increasing costs. According to a recent national survey by TSCL, the majority of Social Security recipients said that their benefits rose by less than in 2014, yet their monthly expenses rose by more than A 1.7% increase would only boost average Social Security benefits by about in January..In a letter of support to Representative Roybal-Allard, Art Cooper Chairman of The Senior Citizens League's Board of Trustees wrote: "Our supporters nationwide question why the Medicare program has not yet been expanded to include coverage of essential hearing, vision, and dental services, which many employers provide during working years. As such, The Senior Citizens League lends its enthusiastic support to the Seniors Have Eyes, Ears, and Teeth Act, a bill that we believe would go a long way in ensuring the retirement security seniors have earned and deserve."