3 Reasons Social Security's COLA Has Been So Pitiful Over the Past Decade
For many of the nearly 64 million Americans receiving a Social Security benefit each month, no annual announcement bears more importance than the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). As the name implies, Social Security's COLA is the "raise" that the program passes along to its recipients each year that's designed to account for the inflation they've been facing. I say "raise" with quotation marks because it rarely ever outpaces inflation, and therefore isn't a true raise that would help beneficiaries get ahead.
Between 2000 and 2009, Social Security beneficiaries walked away with an average annual COLA of 3%. But over the past decade, the average Social Security COLA has been downright pitiful -- an average of 1.4%. This includes three separate years where no COLA was passed along (2010, 2011, and 2016), as well as the lowest positive COLA in history, a 0.3% "raise" in 2017.
How has Social Security's most important measure failed seniors so badly over the last 10 years? The answer boils down to three factors.
Source Fool.com
