Here's Exactly Why Social Security Beneficiaries Keep Losing Buying Power
Each year at around this time, Social Security beneficiaries eagerly await news about how much of a raise they'll be getting in their monthly checks. And in recent years, they've been overwhelmingly disappointed.
Unfortunately, 2021 will be no exception. The Social Security Administration recently announced that beneficiaries will be in line for a 1.3% cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for the new year. That result was based on third-quarter data on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), which measures the price changes of a basket of common goods and services. It's supposed to be a fair surrogate for the real rate of inflation -- yet for years now, Social Security checks have been losing buying power. And the reason largely boils down to one thing: The rapidly rising cost of healthcare.
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Source Fool.com
