Senior retirees on fixed incomes are inflation’s worst victims. What can be done?
- Index the Social Security benefit tax thresholds – so that seniors do not lose more of their benefits because of inflation.
- Inflation indexed bonds (TIPS) can protect seniors from inflation. We should also protect seniors from higher taxes when inflation causes income from those bonds to rise.
- Seniors should be able to exchange their non-indexed pensions (which lose value as prices rise) for an inflation-indexed annuity, which rises whenever prices rise.
