With Social Security checks already going out in 2022, many seniors are adjusting to their newly adjusted benefits.

While there’s a lot of planning going on for retirees in terms of how to save, invest, or spend their Cost-Of-Living-Adjustment (COLA), there’s an important fact about this increase that retirees should remember.

While the 5.9 percent increase in Social Security benefits marks a record raise that’s a cause for celebration, it’s not a reason for seniors to forget about the program’s shortcomings throughout previous years.

Remember the Years Where Social Security COLAs Were Skipped?

Every year in America, the cost of living goes up to some degree. In a fair world, the program seniors have paid into for years would increase payouts at an equal or greater rate.

Sadly, we know that things don’t always turn out fairly in bureaucracy.

In the years 2010, 2011, and 2016, the COLA was canceled — this resulted in a large amount of additional expenses seniors were forced to shoulder alone, as more of their hard-earned money was stolen from them.

This is why NORA not only fights to make COLAs a yearly tradition, but to ensure retirees are reimbursed for those years where they were simply passed over and disregarded by lawmakers.

How Can We Fix the Mistakes of the Past?

While it’s frustrating to think that the raise seniors got this year should’ve been happening year after year for more than a decade, it’s not a situation that leaves seniors helpless.

We can push legislators to right this wrong, and make sure seniors get the full value of their benefits based on what they’ve paid in and based on the amount lost to inflation.

Will you join in our fight to ensure every retiree is treated fairly? More specifically, that they’re treated as a priority for the act of paying into Social Security faithfully all of those years? If so, sign our petition, then follow us on Facebook and Twitter to learn more.