Freezing out grandma & kicking her to the curb

"Facing the prospect of no cost-of-living adjustment for a second consecutive year, disabled, poor and and senior advocates said they were doing the math this week to figure out where to pinch their daily budgets.

"That doesn't go up, but everything else does," said Ma ry Huffer, a Lafayette resident who is on disability and counts on Social Security to help pay her bills. "Food, gas and everything else keeps going up. That's the economy.

"I think it's very sad, the situation we're in. The elderly fall far behind. I can only make so much without losing benefits. It's not a place I choose to be in." The cost-of-living adjustment is set automatically each year as an inflationary measure adopted by Congress in the 1970s.

According to the Social Security Administration, 64 percent of the more than 58 million people receiving benefits rely on those payments as their primary source of income.

"When people aren't getting COLAs they certainly feel like they're falling further and further behind, particularly in this economy," said David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP.

COMMENT:
FAIL - In our history's hardest economic times we have decided NOT to raise the cost of living for recipients of social security for the SECOND year in a row.
Yet we have no problem raise their taxes, medication and healthcare costs with no hope of costs to go down for a decade.

Did I mention we are also raising the price of food, electricity and heat for these people on a fixed income?

EPIC FAIL
In 2009 and 2010 we had the largest increase in poor & hungry our country has experienced since the great depression.
I wonder how this will reflect on 2011 numbers :-(