Social Security Benefits (Essay Sample)

Social security benefits
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Social security forms integral parts of every family, and in most cases will touch the lives of most Americans (Tanner, 2004). It refers to a program initiated by the government aimed at providing financial assistance to people who are unemployed or aged. However, this program not only helps workers who have become older, but also those with disability. In addition, a family in which either a spouse or parent dies also benefits from this program. Today, in America, about 165 million people who are employed pay taxes, and thus about 58 million people receive monthly benefit from social security. The program’s benefits increases over a time by certain percentage. Notably, this depends on increases in the living cost measured by the Consumer Price Index or CPI (Tanner, 2004).
The CPI program produces some monthly information on changes or increases in the prices paid by consumers to represent total goods and services. Such increases are known as Cost-Of-Living Adjustments or COLA. The date of birth of the beneficiary especially when one delayed his or her retirement above the full retirement age, also leads to this increase. However, the CPI can overstate an increase in the cost of living, which may be higher than the actual. Evidently, the CPI measures inflation through comparison of the prices of certain budget of common consumer goods and services. Concerning this, it might include the cost basic needs such as foodstuf...