“Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” a White House Twitter post recently proclaimed. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale had a problem with it. The 8.7 percent increase, biggest since 1981, “is not because of any positive Biden leadership.”
The 2023 increase “is the biggest in years because the inflation rate is the biggest in years.” A 1970s-era law requires SS payments to increase along with consumer prices. As Dale noted, average prices in the third quarter of 2022, as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers
