it was only a month ago that seniors got some very good news social security was getting a 59 cost of living adjustment cola to help them keep up with inflation turns out even that hike—the biggest in years—isn’t enough that’s because prices are now rising even faster than that the labor department said wednesday that the consumerprice index—which measures what americans pay for goods and services—rose by 62 last month from a year ago it’s the biggest 12month rise since 1990 and the fifth straight month over 5 here’s how the price increases break down—again this is compared with a year ago you might look at this and point out that two absolutely indispensable items—“all food” and “rent” are actually well below 62 that’s good right perhaps but have rental costs really gone up just 27 over the past year if your home is heated or cooled by natural gas just look at the whopping 28 gain for the “utility gas” category if you’re in a rental and utilities are covered by a landlord you can be sure that these costs will eventually be passed on to you in the form of higher rents i’d argue that true housing costs are up—or at least soon will be up—more than 27 instead of turning up the heat to stay warm this winter consider putting on an extra layer of clothing and meat poultry fish and eggs are up nearly 12 but the “all food” category is up 53 that doesn’t sound right to me you could certainly survive and probably be healthier eating nothing but fruits and vegetables up 30 but most people won’tcan’t do this no poultry fish meat or eggs not exactly realistic parsing about the individual categories aside it’s important to remember the bottom line here the cost of living adjustment that seniors get each year is only supposed to keep up with inflation not exceed it it is calculated to help seniors maintain their standard of living but not improve it there is no margin for error then when inflation exceeds the cola read what’s the best way to calculate social security’s cola frankly even before wednesday’s bad inflation data you could argue that seniors—even with a 59 cost of living adjustment—were falling behind look at the above categories what’s missing one big source of senior spending healthcare how big as i’ve mentioned many times the average couple retiring this year at age 65 will need an extra 300000 to pay for healthcare that medicare and medicaid don’t cover that figure adjusted upward each spring by is calculated by fidelity investments the bostonbased asset management giant has increased about 88 since 2002 read are those medicare advantage tv ads for real in a separate study medicareguidecom recently estimated that prescription drugs alone gobble up more than 7500 a year and “are rising ‘substantially faster than general inflation in every year” to adjust social security each year without taking these things into better consideration is frankly nuts but that’s the way the government does it a big cost of living adjustment not withstanding millions of seniors are falling further behind