topic Re: Social Security COLA 2022 in Personal Finance

Social Security COLA 2022

Trudy — Sat, 24 Jul 2021 20:20:59 GMT

https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/info-2021/cola-2022-increase-forecast.html?cmp=EMC-DSO-NLC-WBLTR-SAPLA-SOCSEC-BAU-072321-F1-5654376&ET_CID=5654376&ET_RID=46316227&encparam=Q7e5ueLCmycm5yPm%2bztihSqxPR8T23Qc4MrDKeirCjg%3d

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

Save-n-Invest — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 15:47:35 GMT

AARP is a joke.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

Horseshoez — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 16:21:40 GMT

@Save-n-Invest wrote:
AARP is a joke.

Interesting opinion. While I'm not a fan of much of their lobbying activities, I did ultimately join a few years ago and have definitely benefited financially from the move. The single largest benefit to me was insurance, our car and home insurance dropped from just over $3,000 per year to $1,100.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

SoCalGardener — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 17:37:45 GMT

@Horseshoez wrote:
@Save-n-Invest wrote:
AARP is a joke.
Interesting opinion. While I'm not a fan of much of their lobbying activities, I did ultimately join a few years ago and have definitely benefited financially from the move. The single largest benefit to me was insurance, our car and home insurance dropped from just over $3,000 per year to $1,100.

+1. They saved me a ton of money on my highly-customized ADT security system. That alone was worth years and years of annual dues!

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Jul 2021 21:18:59 GMT

@Horseshoez wrote:
@Save-n-Invest wrote:
AARP is a joke.
Interesting opinion. While I'm not a fan of much of their lobbying activities, I did ultimately join a few years ago and have definitely benefited financially from the move. The single largest benefit to me was insurance, our car and home insurance dropped from just over $3,000 per year to $1,100.

That sure is a push on all the television ads on I just save $___ on my car insurance! That is a real piece of change.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

House2021 — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 02:45:59 GMT

Horseshoez did it save you on auto and home insurance because there's an AARP owned company or how did you save so much? You have to pay dues for that discount?

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

Horseshoez — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 06:57:49 GMT

@House2021 wrote:
Horseshoez did it save you on auto and home insurance because there's an AARP owned company or how did you save so much? You have to pay dues for that discount?

The AARP insurance for home and auto is via The Hartford, I had previously been insured by Liberty Mutual for over 20 years. As for dues, yes, I signed up for a 5-year membership and paid something like $60, so yeah, dues of about $12 per year.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

Anonymous — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 09:07:39 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Horseshoez wrote:
@Save-n-Invest wrote:
AARP is a joke.
Interesting opinion. While I'm not a fan of much of their lobbying activities, I did ultimately join a few years ago and have definitely benefited financially from the move. The single largest benefit to me was insurance, our car and home insurance dropped from just over $3,000 per year to $1,100.
That sure is a push on all the television ads on I just save $___ on my car insurance! That is a real piece of change.

There can be huge savings from becoming a new customer! I had the same auto-insurance for many years (at least 20) who also covered my house. My ex-employer also has a special program where three big companies offer deals to employees and retirees. For some reason I cannot recall, two years ago I decided to get a quote from another company. My auto insurance dropped from $2,200 to $700 (with a discount for belonging to another org which we already did), home insurance saw a smaller drop of about $500.

This impact (switch insurers often) is well-known but sometimes hard to take the time to do, but it can be impressive.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

iced — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 13:16:23 GMT

I hope they offer that much of a COLA when I retire. I can have an extra 5% of the $0 I expect to receive.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

KatSoDak — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 21:38:24 GMT

@Save-n-Invest wrote:
AARP is a joke.

The subject of a likely COLA of +5% is being covered by organizations besides AARP.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

UncleB — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 22:23:10 GMT

This thread was started to discuss the SS COLA for 2022... anyone who wishes to further discuss AARP is more than welcome to start another thread.

Thanks in advance for getting the discussion back on-topic.

--UB

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

SoCalGardener — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 23:21:07 GMT

I'll believe it when I see it--or when SS sends me that long, folded-up letter stating so!

A 5% increase is something to [almost] get excited about. The usual 1%--or, worse, NOTHING--of the last few years has sucked. This will be nice, if it actually happens!

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

frugal47374 — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 03:23:20 GMT

I understand people getting excited about large COLA increases for Social Security ... but the only reason for them is inflation. Which means you are getting more money but you are also paying more to live.

So I'm not sure you come out ahead unless your spending is significantly different than what they use to calculate inflation.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

House2021 — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 04:51:14 GMT

I agree that it's unfortunate that COLA is going up due to inflation, but with how hard it's been for folks to get by, a large COLA increase will be helpful to so many who are really struggling right now. However, next year, if inflation stabilizes, then there will be minimal to no increase the following year.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

gdale6 — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 13:56:55 GMT

SS COLAs are not based on the regular CPI but the CPI-W which is the wage index. Wages have been moving up quickly this year hence a larger COLA

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

finfree — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 14:07:49 GMT

@frugal47374 wrote:
I understand people getting excited about large COLA increases for Social Security ... but the only reason for them is inflation. Which means you are getting more money but you are also paying more to live.
So I'm not sure you come out ahead unless your spending is significantly different than what they use to calculate inflation.

It's true that inflation erodes the benefit of a COLA but if your biggest monthly expense is housing and you have a fixed interest mortgage then your basic housing cost isn't tied to inflation.

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

KatSoDak — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 14:25:17 GMT

@gdale6 wrote:
SS COLAs are not based on the regular CPI but the CPI-W which is the wage index. Wages have been moving up quickly this year hence a larger COLA

Not exactly. CPI-W is based on the prices urban wage earners pay for goods, not their wages. I read an article that suggested social security COLAS should probably use a different index since retirees don't spend the same as urban wage earners.

Regardless, here is what I found for a definition of CPI-W

The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) is a monthly measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban wage earners and clerical workers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.

Edit: spelling

Re: Social Security COLA 2022

Save-n-Invest — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 16:30:13 GMT

@KatSoDak wrote:
@Save-n-Invest wrote:
AARP is a joke.
The subject of a likely COLA of +5% is being covered by organizations besides AARP.

Absolutely. I was sort of surprised that AARP was linked here. Have you ever read the comment section on an AARP article? You can hear and feel your brain cells dying as your eyes scan the idiocy. My comment was on AARP not any COLA speculation.

COLA is determined comparing the third quarter to same quarter prior year. Not at all representative of annual cost increases. It really doesn't matter as Medicare Part B takes the increase anyway.

If AARP is revered here as Amex is maybe I should comnet on other threads.