Who Really Benefits from Social Security’s Cost-of-Living Index? Depends How Long You Live
Budget battles in recent years have thrust politicians and budget wonks into heated debates over how to adjust Social Security benefits for inflation. This may seem a dry matter, but once the initial level of monthly benefits is determined, the inflation index then becomes the key determinant of whether America’s retirees get a raise. Now Matthew Weinzierl, an economist at Harvard, has a new paper arguing that the tradeoffs in switching Social Security indexes are more complex than commonly appreciated, because it has different implications depending on how long one lives…Read More