Early Read: 2012 Social Security Cost-Of-Living Adjustment on track for 3%+ increase

Early Read: 2012 Social Security Cost-Of-Living Adjustment on track for 3%+ increase

by CalculatedRisk

The BLS reported this morning: "The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) increased 4.1 percent over the last 12 months to an index level of 222.686 (1982-84=100)."

CPI-W is the index that is used to calculate the Cost-Of-Living Adjustments (COLA). Here is an explanation ...

The calculation dates have changed over time (see Cost-of-Living Adjustments), but the current calculation uses the average CPI-W for the three months in Q3 (July, August, September) and compares to the average for the highest previous average of Q3 months. Note: this is not the headline CPI-U, and not seasonally adjusted.

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.



This graph shows CPI-W since January 2000. The red lines are the Q3 average of CPI-W for each year.

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Q Thank you Mr. President. My name is Justin Hubbs (ph). My question was just about revenue. I see a lot of the Republican presidential nominees signing pledges not to raise taxes. I was wondering if you could make a pledge that any deal will have a revenue increase.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, here’s -- it’s just math. If you have a deal that does not have revenue in it and you still want to close the deficit by, say, $4 trillion, which is what the experts say is required in order to stabilize our debt and our deficit -- and this is over a 10-year period -- if you have no revenue, then the only way to do that is you’ve got to drastically cut things like Medicare. You have to -- there’s no two ways about it. You’ve got to drastically cut Medicare; you’ve got to drastically cut Medicaid; you’ve got to cut back on education support in significant ways that affect schoolkids right here in Atkinson and all across the country.

So since I’m in Wyffels Hybrids, it’s like eating your seed corn. You are cutting back on the things that are going to help you grow and help this country succeed over the long term. It’s just not a smart thing to do. It’s not how you would run your own family business. And so I think it’s also important to understand that we can raise the kind of revenues we’re talking about without having an impact on middle-class families who are already struggling and haven’t seen their wages and their incomes go up in over a decade now. It can be done. (Applause.) The tax code is full of loopholes. Close those loopholes. (Applause.)

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