The Social Security Administration announced Thursday that beneficiaries will receive an 8.7% cost-of-living adjustment next year. That’s good news for seniors today who—like all other Americans—are struggling with rising costs, but it comes at the expense of a diminished Social Security system for current and future retirees.
Social Security is funded by current workers’ payroll taxes, but since the average worker’s wages increased only 4.1% over the past year, that means Social Security’s revenues have increased at less than half the rate of its newly announced expenditure increase.
Add in the fact that there are 2.8 million fewer people working today compared with the