AP misleads…again

This morning’s Associated Press announces that retirees are getting a big pay raise in their checks next year;

Social Security benefits for 50 million people will be go up 5.8 percent next year, the largest increase in more than a quarter century.

The increase, which will start in January, was announced Thursday by the Social Security Administration. It will mean an additional $63 per month for the average retiree.

The increase is the largest since a 7.4 percent jump in 1982 and is more than double the 2.3 percent rise that retirees got in their monthly checks starting in January of this year.
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The typical retiree’s monthly check will go from $1,090 currently to $1,153.

But the fatter Social Security check may still seem puny to millions of retirees battered this year by huge increases in energy and food costs who have also watched helplessly as their retirement savings have been assaulted by the biggest upheavals on Wall Street in seven decades.

They fail to mention to the “me” culture that this isn’t a merit pay raise for being good social security recipients. It’s a cost of living increase based on LAST YEAR’s consumer price index. It jumped 7.4% in 1982 because that’s what the inflation rate was then, it’s gone only 1or 2% every year recently because that’s what inflation has been. I know it’s hard to give the Bush Administration credit for controlling inflation the last few years, AP, but cheezum crow….

Category: Politics