[justlurking]

I'm on social security, and uh, no they don't, and uh, no they won't. He just lost his credibility right there.

No, he's right. You just didn't understand what he meant.

Your initial Social Security benefits are calculated from something called AIME, or "average indexed monthly earnings":

Indexing Factors for Earnings

Here's a table of the factors, dating back to 1951:

Average Wage Indexing (AWI) Series

Once your benefit is calculated two years prior to age 62, THEN a COLA is applied thereafter. And that is similar, but not exactly the same as inflation.

The author's point is: the average wage index has been increasing faster than inflation. So, the initial benefit (calculated from your wages) has been increasing faster than inflation.

[MadIsh32]

Thank you for that post and the data it provided