Social Security Checks to Shrink Next Year

August 21, 2009

Despite a federal law prohibiting it, Social Security checks, which are paid out to elderly Americans, will not rise with the growing inflation rate. Since automatic increases were adopted in 1975, there has never been an occasion where the cost of living adjustment (COLA) has not increased.

Senior citizens rely on the increase every year to help them afford their daily expenses, their monthly bills, and their health care costs. Without the increase, many will struggle to make ends meet.

The reason that COLA is being cut in the next year is that there simply is not enough money to go around. Because the baby boomer generation is aging rapidly, more and more Americans are relying on the benefits provided by the United States’ social security programs, including monthly checks and Medicare benefits.

This lack of an increase will also negatively affect the nation’s disabled individuals who have to get their income from government funds because they are physically or mentally incapable of work.