What seemed like a generous raise for seniors in October has been all but wiped out by inflation.
The 5.9% increase in Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment, announced in October, was the highest in 40 years, lifting benefits by $92 per month. But 73% of seniors said their household expenses increased by at least $96 per month in 2021, and nearly half said their expenditures had increased by more than $144 per month, according to a survey by the Senior Citizens League (TSCL).
“Some people are just getting into some real bad situations,” said Mary Johnson, a Social Security and Medicare policy analyst for the league. “The problem is when living on fixed income, it’s not like you can go out and get a part-time job, because many seniors often retired because of health problems or other issues.”
Johnson said inflation has continued to spiral upward since the 2022 adjustment was announced, and by January it was already falling behind the rate of inflation. “The December consumer price index data indicates that the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W), which is used to calculate the Social Security COLA, was 7.8% through December 2021. That’s 1.9 percentage point higher than the 5.9% COLA that beneficiaries actually received in January,” she noted.
The average retiree benefit in 2021 was $1,564, which jumped to $1,656.30 in January with the 5.9% increase, Johnson said. But with December inflation of 7.8%, that benefit would need to increase by $122 to $1,686 just to keep up. She added that the average retiree faced a shortfall of about $30 per month due to inflation through the end of last year.
Johnson does a monthly tracking of inflation, and the CPI-W data in February showed an 8.6% increase year over year. “No one alive who is retired today has ever seen that. We haven’t seen inflation that high since 1981,” she said.
The survey of more than 3,000 Senior Citizens League members also revealed that a sizable segment of the retiree community does not have adequate savings. Johnson said close to half reported that they did not have any savings at all. That’s not exactly a surprise, she said, pointing out that a report by the General Accounting Office in 2019 found that 46% of seniors did not have adequate savings.
One of the more alarming findings of the survey is that 43% of the respondents without savings said they are using their credit cards and carrying debt for more than 90 days. “So they are going into debt, and with interest rates going up it’s going to be much harder for them,” she said. The Senior Citizens League, she said, will be addressing that issue and pointing people to resources that are geared toward debt management.
Beyond that, Johnson said the league is seeing a huge increase in the number of people applying for safety net programs, “and the first thing they have been showing up for is SNAP benefits,” she said. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly the Food Stamp Program, provides benefits to eligible low-income individuals and families. Johnson said many seniors are also visiting food pantries.
Seniors are furthermore applying for Medicare programs to help cover the cost of premiums. And they are applying for rental assistance, she said. In fact, Johnson said, the cost of housing was the second biggest concern, after food, for seniors who participated in the survey.