Prompt Passage of Economic Recovery Act Payment for 2010 Needed - Law Does Not
Provide for a Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2010
With consumer prices down over the past year, monthly Social Security and
Supplemental Security Income benefits for more than 57 million Americans will not automatically increase in 2010. This
will be the first year without an automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) since they went into effect in 1975. The
Social Security Act provides that Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits increase automatically each
year if there is an increase in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and
Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of the last year to the third quarter of the current year. This year there
was no increase in the CPI-W from the third quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009. In addition, because there was
no increase in the CPI-W this year, under the law the starting point for determinations regarding a possible 2011 COLA
will remain the third quarter of 2008.
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