Senior News Line: Retirees face shortfalls despite COLA increase

An informal poll of friends and neighbors got me a range of responses, from grimaces to laughs to snarls. My question was about how they were going to spend the approximate extra $56 that Social Security beneficiaries will be receiving as of January when the new cost-of-living adjustment kicks in.

That 2.8% increase in the average Social Security benefit — $2,071 for individuals and $3,208 for couples — won’t get us much when compared to what is happening in the grocery stores, and everywhere else.

We have been complaining about this for years: the COLA price index, or CPI-W, that’s used to calculate Social Security increases doesn’t apply to us. Instead, we keep saying, they should use the Research Consumer Price Index, or R-CPI-E, which is more in line with how seniors over the age of 62 actually spend money.

And then there’s the wee problem of Medicare Part B also going up — again — from $185 this year to $202 for 2026. That amount has to be subtracted from the $56 increase, which means an actual $38 increase in Social Security.

There is, however, a movement afoot in Congress to give us a temporary increase of $200 per month from January to July. Called the Social Security Emergency Inflation Relief Act, the proposal is being batted around in Congress at this point.

The bill, S.3078, says it would provide payments to “recipients of Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, railroad retirement benefits and veterans disability compensation or pension benefits.”

I asked, in my informal poll, what they would do with that extra $200 per month should the proposal pass: stick it in savings for an emergency, pay off a medical bill, turn up the thermostat, buy a good winter coat?

The responses ran the gamut of possibilities, which says one thing: We need that money.