No COLA for Seniors But Lots of Juice For Business
The trustees of the Social Security system announced that there will be no increases in monthly payments to Social Security recipients for the next two years. For a generation Social Security recipients have received annual “Cost of Living adjustments” known as “COLA.” Now millions of senior citizens, who for years silently paid into the Social Security system, and who did nothing to cause the loss of their COLA will not see any increase in their monthly checks to help cover their ever increasing living and medical expenses, loss in value of stock portfolios and their homes. Yet, at the same time the government has given billions of “bail out” dollars to prop-up mismanaged corporations and banks so they can tighten credit availability in a collapsing economic climate and award huge bonuses to employees who got them in trouble in the first place. And, at the same time members of the U.S. Congress, who voted to bail out the corporations and banks refuse to do anything about lost COLA increases or discuss why they are totally exempt from the Social Security system, receive unconscionable, full salary pensions after serving as little as one elected term and get full medical coverage. Something is seriously wrong with the economy and Congress, but just a few of the billions given to AIG, Goldman-Sacks, Bank of America, General Motors and others should have been used for COLA increases to prop-up America’s seniors.
Alan J. Reardon
