Retirees: Expect Just a $23 Social Security Raise for 2020
Social Security is the primary means of financial support for tens of millions of older Americans. One of the best features of Social Security is that the monthly payments it makes take inflation into account, and so at the beginning of each year, recipients typically get larger checks from Social Security.
Those receiving Social Security got a nice boost at the beginning of 2019, with the 2.8% increase in their checks being the largest adjustment they'd seen since 2012. However, the final numbers are in for the coming year, and 2020's increase won't be as big as 2019's -- working out to just $23 for the typical person receiving Social Security retirement benefits.
The numbers that go into the calculation for Social Security's annual adjustment to benefit payments come from the summer months. Every month, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest reading for the CPI-W index. To come up with the yearly adjustment, the Social Security Administration looks at the average of the readings for the three months from July to September. It compares that average to the same average from the previous year. The percentage increase, rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentage point, becomes the cost-of-living adjustment for the subsequent year.
Source Fool.com
