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Providing relief for more than 11 million middle-class beneficiaries who pay income taxes on their Social Security benefits each year..While you may be familiar with the problem of our government using a price index that reflects the inflation experience of younger workers rather than retired people over the age of 62, you quite likely have not heard very much about the specifics of how our government calculates price indexes. What the average person thinks of as a straight - forward mathematical calculation, the federal government can approach in convoluted ways..Please Be Careful When Using Disinfectants and Cleaners.This week, The Senior Citizens League released its annual "Loss of Buying Power" study, which found that Social Security benefits have lost 34 percent of their purchasing power since 2000. In addition, lawmakers in the House and Senate left Washington for the holiday recess..By Representative John Garamendi.To determine if a portion of the taxpayer's Social Security benefits are taxable, half of Social Security benefits are added to the adjusted gross income, plus any tax - exempt interest, and certain other tax - exempt income. "Few people today think of an adjusted gross income of as little as ,000 -,000 as 'substantial' income," Johnson says. To calculate the taxable portion of benefits, taxpayers can find a worksheet in IRS publication 915..Therefore, they are considering using the "reconciliation" process because they would only need 51 votes. But if they do that, legislation passed over ten years ago dictates that they must either raise taxes or cut spending on current programs to pay for the new spending in the President's bill..Your persistent support in signing petitions, sending email, and letters to your Members of Congress have helped build the highest level of co-sponsorship in more than ten years..Those people include Barbara B. - a retired home healthcare aide who lives in the Indianapolis area. "We're due for the increase," she says. But rising Part B premiums will likely take her entire COLA, leaving her with no increase at all in her net operating Social Security benefit again in 2018.