Want to make people upset? Talk about Social Security’s cost of living adjustment

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I have some advice for anyone who dares to write about the latest Social Security cost-of-living adjustment: Don’t.

I made the mistake of nevertheless devoting a Retirement Weekly column to this subject, and received perhaps more vitriolic email than I have for any other single column since I began writing for MarketWatch in 2002. At the nicer end of the spectrum were those telling me that I simply didn’t know what I was talking about. At the other end were those predicting I would be reincarnated as a gross insect inside an inaccessible body part. And it went downhill from there.

So, please, don’t send me any more of your monthly budgets asking me how you are supposed to live on what you get from Social Security. Consider a hypothetical 65-year old single male investing $100,000 in an immediate annuity. The best deal available at ImmediateAnnuities for one that is not indexed to inflation pays $525 a month for the rest of his life. To get an annuity indexed to the consumer-price index, the best you can get is one that pays just $323 a month—only 62% as much.

Though there is much support for legislation that would direct the Social Security Administration to start using the CPI-E as the benchmark for determining its COLAs, you should not exaggerate the impact of such a change. Over the last several decades, for example, the CPI-E has risen by 0.2 annualized percentage points faster than the CPI-U.

 

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