This study illustrates why legislation is needed to provide a more fair and adequate COLA. To put it in perspective, for every 0 worth of groceries a retiree could afford in 2000, they can only buy worth today. To help protect the buying power of benefits, TSCL supports legislation that would provide a modest boost in benefits and base COLAs on the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) or guarantee that the COLA would be a minimum of 3 percent. To learn more, visit . .Do you have a plan to manage aging parents, siblings, or the needs of children or grandchildren? Do family commitments require your time, attention or other resources, including finances? If something were to happen to you, how would that impact other family members? If children or grandchildren come to you asking for loans or childcare, how does that impact your retirement finances and how will you manage that? .Several subcommittee members at Thursday's hearing spoke about the importance of stable and reliable funding for the administration in the coming years so that it can continue its efforts to modernize the program's IT system. The Senior Citizens League agrees that adequate administrative funding is critical, and we will continue to advocate for the Social Security Administration Fairness Act (S. 6251, H.R. 3147) in the months ahead. That bill, if adopted, would set SSA's funding level at 1.5 percent of overall benefit payments, and it would implement a moratorium on field office closures so that beneficiaries receive the service they have earned and deserve. .We know that other prevention steps help stop the spread of COVID-19, and that these steps are still important, even as vaccines are being distributed. .TSCL's research has consistently found that Medicare Part B premiums rank as one of the fastest growing senior costs. Yet Medicare premium costs are not included in the measure currently used to determine the annual COLA — one major reason why COLAs do such a poor job of keeping up with rising healthcare costs. TSCL continues to lobby for a more fair and accurate COLA and supports legislation that would use a seniors' index — like the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) — to determine the annual boost. .Based on the growth rate of the Consumer Price Index for Workers (CPI-W) over past 12 months, I'm projecting a COLA in the vicinity of 3.6% for 201But Congress may take action that would slow the growth of the COLA. Deficit reduction plans are likely to call for switching to the "chained" CPI, a move that TSCL feels would further undermine the purchasing power of benefits. The difference between the CPI-W and chained COLA has averaged about 0.3 percentage point since 2000, but that's not the case this year. In fact, if the switch were to affect the COLA payable in 2012, seniors would get a COLA of about 2.8% — a cut of more than 20%. .In addition, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a federal agency within the legislative branch, does its own forecast of the programs. The CBO produces independent analyses of budgetary and economic issues to support the Congressional budget process. Each year, the agency's economists and budget analysts produce dozens of reports and hundreds of cost estimates for proposed legislation. .How much are you over-paying for your prescription drugs? The only way to find out is to do a drug plan comparison based on all the drugs you take. This is the time of year you can make changes during the Medicare Open Enrollment period, which runs through the month of November and ends December 7th. Give the Medicare Drug Plan Finder a try. You can get free one-on-one counseling by contacting your local Area on Aging, State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) or senior centers and ask for help comparing Medicare drug plans. .The new study takes a closer look at the Social Security "hold harmless" provision. Typically, Social Security benefits tend to grow slightly each year as COLAs compound over time. But when the Medicare premium increases more than an individual's COLA that can trigger this special provision of law. Hold harmless protects Social Security benefits when the dollar amount of an individual's annual COLA increase is not sufficient to cover the increase in the Medicare Part B premium increase. If the increase in Medicare Part B premium would cause an individual's net Social Security benefit to be less than it was the year before, then the Part B premium is reduced to ensure the individual's Social Security benefit does not decline.