RetireSafe Commends Six Members of Congress for Sponsoring H.R. 5305, the “CPI for Seniors Act,” and Standing Up for America’s Seniors!
October 21, 2010 (Washington, DC) — Today, RetireSafe President Thair Phillips commended six Members of Congress for their leadership in sponsoring H.R. 5305, the CPI for Seniors Act. “On behalf of RetireSafe’s 400,000 senior citizen supporters nationwide, and millions of Social Security beneficiaries, I want to commend and thank six specific Members of Congress, all of whom have really stepped up to help older Americans,” Phillips said.
“As seniors again face the prospect of a “zero” Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for the year ahead, based on the use of an inaccurate Consumer Price Index (CPI), those six United States Representatives -- John “Jimmy” Duncan, Jr. (TN-2), Daniel Lipinski (IL-3), Marcia Fudge (OH-11), Michael Arcuri (NY-24), Gregg Harper (MS-3), and Zachary Space (OH-18) -- have all stood up for America’s seniors by sponsoring H.R. 5305, the CPI for Seniors Act,” he continued. “This legislation would finally and for all time solve the faulty CPI that annually produces an incorrect Social Security COLA,” Phillips emphasized.
He noted, “The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics now calculates annual Social Security COLAs using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). “Clearly this is wrong, as older Americans use different products and have different expenses, including much higher health care costs,” Phillips stated. He also noted that “while the experimental index for the elderly (CPI-E) provides more accurate reflections of senior inflationary pressures, it too has proven flaws.” “While there may be other approaches to address this problem, we believe the critical first step should be a truly accurate CPI-S that will finally reflect the actual costs borne by older Americans,” Phillips added.
“We are grateful that U.S. Representatives Duncan, Lipinski, Fudge, Arcuri, Harper, and Space have sponsored H.R. 5305, a bill to mandate a broad-based CPI just for seniors, one that will produce a fair and accurate COLA each and every year,” he said. “This bipartisan group of Representatives is truly standing up for the best interests of millions of older Americans, and RetireSafe salutes them, Phillips concluded.