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>Are the rest of us on variable incomes which we can scale up and down at will? Are you on an income which is, by law, tied to changes in the Consumer Price In
by edmccard 10y ago
>Are the rest of us on variable incomes which we can scale up and down at will?
Are you on an income which is, by law, tied to changes in the Consumer Price Index? That's how Social Security works. From the 2016 benefit letters:
"The law does not permit an increase in benefits when there is no increase in the cost of living. So your benefit will stay the same in 2016. There was no increase in the cost of living during the past year based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) published by the Department of Labor."
So maybe "pegged", as in "pegged to an index", would have been a better idiom, but we're probably stuck with "fixed".
- zardo 10y agoYeah... When someone says fixed income, I assume they mean a fixed income. Ie a pension or an annuity that does not adjust with the cost of living.
- ad-hominem 10y agoProbably not a safe assumption. Most people without a pension that are retired are living off some sort of retirement fund (IRA, 401k) that still technically gets returns. They just are taking out instead of paying in. Their returns are likely to be a little less than inflation, but they are withdrawing $XX,000 a year for the rest of their life ("Fixed income")
- dragonwriter 10y agoWhen discussing income, there are two measures, "nominal" (the number of dollars) and "real" (the amount of buying power, which is the number of dollars adjusted for inflation). Social security is fixed real income. Annuities are fixed nominal income.