Latest News
CPI-E Advanced in New Congressional Bill
U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) recently introduced legislation that could increase the monthly benefits paid to seniors by requiring the Social Security Administration to use a different inflation-calculation formula. His bill, titled the “Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act,” calls for replacing CPI-W–the metric currently used to calculate cost-of-living adjustments–with the “Consumer Price Index for Americans 62 years of age and older,” commonly known as CPI-E.
CPI-E is a research price index designed to measure price changes using the spending patterns of older Americans.[1] BLS has said there are several limitations to the validity of CPI-E as it is currently calculated. Under its current data collection, CPI-E uses data from the CPI-U calculation based on the subset of survey respondents with a household member over age 62. The prices collected are not based solely on data statistically significant to the over-aged 62 population, such as which items, where the items are purchased, and the impact of senior discounts on the pricing of these items. Before CPI-E can be used to calculate the COLA, DOL must improve its collection methods for this index.
The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; socialsecurityreport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link’s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or socialsecurityreport.org.
[1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, R-CPI-E Homepage, https://www.bls.gov/cpi/research-series/r-cpi-e-home.htm, last modified March 14, 2023.