Nevin's Data "Points"

Over the past couple of years, one of the most-clicked posts on NAPA-Net has been on a topic that is a bit of a head-scratcher. I’m speaking, of course, of the (now-incessantly tracked), monthly projections of the (potential) cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security. It started back when inflation emerged as a real consumer concern—and it was spurred by the efforts of a group called the Senior Citizens League in publishing—EVERY MONTH—a projected cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security. [i] And our coverage of those projections has been, and continues to be, one of the most clicked-on stories [ii] (ditto other publications, apparently).   Like many, perhaps most, of you, I was initially intrigued by the reporting. Let’s face it, after a couple of decades of relative economic slumber, inflation has reared its ugly head in a way that reminds some of us of the days of our youth when inflation was an actual scary economic reality, rather tha...

At a recent conference, our luncheon table got to talking about savings trends and the unique challenges of Millennials, specifically the impact of graduating with so much college debt. While several at the table had graduated with (and since paid off) college debt, the sums paled in comparison to the kinds of figures bandied about in recent headlines — or did, until I loaded up an online calculator that allowed us to see what our college debt at graduation amounted to in today’s dollars. To the collective astonishment of the retirement experts at that table, the totals, adjusted for inflation, were very much in line with the figures reported for today’s graduates. Factoring in those kinds of cost-of-living adjustments is, of course, a crucial aspect of retirement planning. Unlike Social Security, there is no annual cost-of-living “adjustment” for retirement savings—no systematic means by which those accumulated savings are increased to offset the increased costs of things like ...

A couple of weeks back, the Social Security Administration announced that, for the second year in a row—but only for the second time since 1975—there would be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security recipients. Of course, this close to an election, it should come as no surprise that some went scurrying to introduce legislation that would provide some kind of supplemental funding to the nation’s seniors; similar actions were undertaken a year ago, ostensibly in the interests of economic stimulus, as well as the importance of supporting those on fixed incomes. But this election year is one unlike most, perhaps any, in our memory—and concerns about the federal budget deficit have, thus far, overcome the political class’s natural inclinations in such matters. Whether or not you are on a fixed income, it’s hard to credibly argue that prices aren’t rising on everything from food to gasoline to utilities; from real estate taxes (those reassessments never come as rapidly when ...