(Reston, VA) On behalf of its almost 400,000 senior citizen supporters nationwide, RetireSafe today urged Congress to think about America’s retired population in any economic stimulus package it considers.

“The economic slowdown has hit seniors particularly hard this year. They are often living on fixed income and have no opportunities to increase their income,” said RetireSafe President Michelle Plasari.

“The average senior living on Social Security received a raise of about $288 this year – hardly enough to keep up with their rising cost of living. Congress gave itself a raise of over $4,000 this year,” continued Plasari.

Millions of retirees do not earn enough income to file federal tax returns and receive refunds, and most are not considered poor enough to qualify for low-income programs being considered as part of the economic stimulus package.

“One surefire way to include seniors in the stimulus package is to adopt an emergency cost of living adjustment (COLA) increase for Social Security. Today’s COLA is calculated based on the habits of young, urban professionals. It doesn’t take into account the rising health care, insurance, and energy costs America’s seniors are currently struggling with,” said Plasari.

The Social Security COLA was adopted to help seniors keep up with inflation. Since 1983 the Bureau of Labor Statistics has maintain an experimental consumer price index for the elderly (CPI-E) that tracks seniors expenses more closely than the formula currently used to calculate the COLAs. Some groups have shown that since 2000 seniors have lost as much as 40% of their buying power as a result of not adopting the CPI-E as the COLA standard.

“Senior Americans are responsible for 14% of consumer spending in this country today. They are a vital and growing segment of our economy and shouldn’t be forgotten in a plan for economic recovery. An emergency COLA increase would put needed spending money in their pockets,” said Plasari.

In addition to adopting an emergency COLA increase for retirees, Congress should also consider a moratorium on the taxes seniors pay on dividends, capital gains and interest income. Millions of retirees depend on this type of income to supplement their Social Security checks.

“While the 2003 tax cuts lowered the taxes on dividends and capital gains, those tax cuts are set to expire in 2011. Ultimately making those tax cuts permanent would go a long way toward making retirement more secure for tens of millions of older Americans,” concluded Plasari.