Personal Finance Advice and Commentary

Putting the squeeze on how we calculate the rising cost of living could be a good way to keep us from flying off the “fiscal cliff.”

Thanks to a cost of living adjustment, Social Security will rise 1.7 percent Jan. 1.

Social Security recipients can expect a 1.3 percent cost-of-living raise in 2013, but that won’t cover expected Medicare Part D increases.

It’s official: Social Security recipients are getting a 3.6 percent raise, thanks to an increase in the measurement of the cost of living. My 65-year-old, grumpy, accountant husband  doesn’t think this is such great retirement planning news. He points out that Social Security recipients are faring better than savers. He says, “Normally, with 3.6 percent

It looks like there will be a Social Security cost of living adjustment, or COLA, in 2012 — positive retirement planning news for many. Bill McBride, a retired financial executive, blogs at CalculatedRiskBlog.com about economic trends. On Friday, he calculated the early line on Social Security COLAs and concluded that based on Friday’s report from

It’s hard to keep up with Washington’s progress (or lack thereof) on talks about the debt ceiling limit, so I asked Bankrate’s tax blogger Kay Bell for the latest news. She said the meeting is down to two people at the moment: President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). I asked her if

As Congress struggles with ways to reduce the federal deficit, one of the approaches that appears to be among the most likely to be adopted is a revision in the way the Consumer Price Index is calculated. The CPI measures how much the cost of the things people buy is affected by inflation. The chained