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Key Points
- The Social Security Administration announced 2025's COLA will only be 2.5%
- This is substantially lower than prior year increases, and could pinch middle class Americans
- Retirees should consider additional sources of income, like bonds or dividends
- These two 'Dividend Legends' should be near the top of their list
Watch The Video
https://videos.247wallst.com/247wallst.com/2024/10/The-Lowest-COLA-Increase-In-Years-Hits-Middle-Class-Americans.mp4
Edited Transcript
[00:00:00] Doug McIntyre: So I get social security and you get social security. I do. Um, you know, we've been sort of used to a fairly healthy bump up, uh, every year. This, this year wasn't, uh, as healthy. Um, how does that affect you and maybe tens of millions of other people?
[00:00:23] Lee Jackson: Well, I'm blessed because of the career I had, you know, the, my social security is a nice adjunct to, to the other, you know, income that I, passive income I have.
[00:00:35] Lee Jackson: But this year, Doug, the increase, well, this year's announced for 2025, the increase is only 2. 5%. And that's the lowest cola as it's called cost of living adjustment since 2021. And will it affect me a lot? No, and I'm blessed and probably won't affect you as much either, but for somebody where that is a large part of.
[00:01:01] Lee Jackson: Their income it's it's not it's not really that good and to be frank with you The the government numbers are all skewed on inflation because you can't tell the average citizen Two and a half percent is going to help buying groceries
[00:01:18] Doug McIntyre: No, which it which it really isn't
[00:01:20] Lee Jackson: it equates to 50 bucks a month for most retirees
[00:01:25] Doug McIntyre: I do think if you're a retiree one of the things you've got to look at out over the next 10 years Is We had a big cola for a couple of years because you did have real inflation.
[00:01:38] Doug McIntyre: Oh yeah. It was almost 9 percent a couple of years ago. Before that you didn't have much inflation. When you look at your income over the course of the next, say five years, there's a good chance that the fed has beaten down inflation that they've, you know, you know, Take a, taken enough of a hammer to it that it's going to be down for a while.
[00:01:58] Doug McIntyre: And if that's the case, you may want to get used to the fact that you're looking at 2 percent or 3 percent Colas for a while. And, you know, you need to think about your lifestyle accordingly. If social security is a very large part of your income.
[00:02:12] Lee Jackson: Yeah, yeah and and a big problem here And and you can point right back at the federal reserve and you can point right back At not just the current administration all administrations for the last 25 years is that they have spent so much money and we are in such a backwash of 35 trillion dollars of of sovereign debt that the the value of the dollar has dropped and you know What what a ten dollars?
[00:02:43] Lee Jackson: would get you two years ago, well, that costs you 14 now. And that is the thing that hurts middle America is the constant devaluation of the dollar because of the rampant spending that never seems to be
[00:02:57] Doug McIntyre: controlled. It's not. You can't do anything about what the government's going to do with your social security, but what you can do is you can anticipate based on the likelihood that you're going to see a lot of inflation over the next couple of years, you can't anticipate and make some level of planning.
[00:03:16] Doug McIntyre: Based on the fact that you may not see really significant increases in what your annual payout is.
[00:03:22] Lee Jackson: Right. Right. And that's where past, and we write about this, you know, constantly, that's where passive income can bail out investors, especially retirees. And you know, are those getting close to retirement?
[00:03:35] Lee Jackson: So you can have stocks and bonds and, and even CDs and, you know, high yield money markets that are insured to 250, 000. Um, you can have that as an adjunct. That's safe to go along with your slowly rising social security.
[00:03:52] Doug McIntyre: Yeah.
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