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Tough Questions To Ask When The Campaign Comes To Town With the entire House of Representatives, one-third of the Senate, and the White House up for grabs this election season, senior votes will be especially sought after as incumbents try to maintain control of the House and Senate. How do you sort through the claims, excuses, finger-pointing, and promises? Here are some tough questions to ask on the issues: Can COLAs Be More Fair? What to ask: The current Social Security Cost-Of-Living Adjustment (COLA) is indexed to a Consumer Price Index (CPI) that does not survey the senior market basket, but the market basket of younger workers. Do you support the creation of a more fair COLA by indexing it to a senior-CPI? This year Social Security beneficiaries received a 2.4% COLA. Meanwhile, health insurance premiums increased 10%, spending on prescription drugs rose 16%, and gasoline and heating oil prices have nearly doubled from their price a year ago. COLAs are indexed to the Consumer Price Index For Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) which surveys the "market basket" of goods and services upon which younger workers spend most of their money. Not only does the CPI-W represent the buying habits of less than a third of the American public, it specifically excludes the "market basket" of those receiving pension income like Social Security. Younger workers are more likely to have employer-provided health insurance and do not use prescription drugs as frequently as seniors do. For the past 16 years the government has tracked a senior CPI, The Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPI-E). Because it gives greater weight to the costs of such items as health insurance and prescription drugs the CPI-E has been rising more quickly than the CPI. In fact, if the CPI-E were used seniors would have received a COLA of 2.6% this year versus the 2.4% they actually received. TSCL supports H.R. 1422, the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers Act introduced by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Robert Ney (R-OH) that would index the COLA to the CPI-E.
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