I wonder if any of my readers have thought about this. Why did you get the 2022 cost-of-living increase in your January Social Security checks? After all, that check you get in January is the Social Security payment for December. In other words, you get your first 2022 COLA increase in your December 2021 Social Security benefit. So why is that? Well, it has to do with the power of the senior citizen lobby in this country. When old folks gripe about something, especially when it comes to Social Security, Congress can’t act quickly enough to make them happy. And this business about getting the COLA one month early is a good example of that.
Automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security checks first started in 1975. (Prior to that, it took an act of Congress to hand out increases in Social Security benefits.) And when those automatic COLAs started, they were always properly paid in the January Social Security check that was sent to folks in February. And for the first several years, people just accepted this procedure.
