By FATIMA HUSSEIN, The Associated Press<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The ongoing government shutdown<\/a> is delaying the announcement of the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for tens of millions of beneficiaries.<\/p>\n Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the Social Security COLA announcement<\/a> will be Oct. 24. It is timed to the September Consumer Price Index, which also has not yet been released.<\/p>\n The agency adjusts its benefits every year based on inflation. The postponement of the announcement is the most recent example of how the government shutdown, entering its third week and with little progress made toward a resolution, has made it more difficult for people to plan out their finances.<\/p>\n Projections by Senior Citizens League and the AARP anticipate a COLA increase of roughly 2.7%. About 70.6 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, get Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n Social Security Administration beneficiaries have voiced concerns that next year\u2019s increase will not be enough to counter rising costs.<\/p>\n Sue Conard, a 75-year-old retired nurse from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and SSA recipient, recently traveled to the U.S. Capitol with other retiree members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union to lobby for meaningful progress toward gaining health care protections to end the shutdown, as well as changes to Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n She said she wants lawmakers to change the calculation on how the COLA is determined since the standard CPI gauge, which includes a market basket of consumer goods and services, doesn\u2019t take into account many costs typical for older Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue of how the COLA is determined is flat-out wrong because health care is not factored into the CPI,\u201d said Conard, speaking on the front steps of the Longworth House Office Building.<\/p>\n Some lawmakers have proposed legislation that would make SSA use a different index, called the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E), to calculate the cost-of-living increase that measures price changes based on the spending patterns of older people on things such as health care, food and medicine.<\/p>\n The agency is expected to begin notifying recipients about their new benefit amount starting in early December. A spokesperson for Social Security who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the COLA said retirement and Supplemental Security Income benefits would be adjusted beginning Jan. 1, 2026, without any delay despite the government lapse in appropriations.<\/p>\n The delayed COLA announcement comes as the national social insurance plan<\/a> faces a severe financial shortfall in the coming years and as the agency has seen substantial workforce cuts.<\/p>\n The annual Social Security<\/a> and Medicare trustees report released in June said the program\u2019s trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034, instead of last year\u2019s estimate of 2035. If the trust fund is depleted, the government will be able to pay only 81% of scheduled benefits, the report said.<\/p>\n In addition, the agency laid off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000 earlier this year, putting pressure on the remaining workers to handle claims and answer inquiries from a rising number of recipients.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By FATIMA HUSSEIN, The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The ongoing government shutdown is delaying the announcement of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-80038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}