Based in Law, not a President
In a now-deleted Tweet written a week before midterms, President Biden tried to take credit for the Social Security increases that recipients will receive in 2023. The White House twitter account gleefully announced that “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership.”
The problem is that Social Security increases are based on a formula known as COLA, or cost-of-living adjustment, which measures inflation and the Consumer Price Index. The CPI was up 8.7% in the year-over-year comparison and therefore, seniors will receive an 8.7% adjustment.
It’s worth it to note that this increase is actually the largest since 1981, not just 10 years, because inflation is the worst it has been in four decades. One could argue that indeed it is his leadership (via his atrocious economic policies, mind you) that is the basis for the escalation in prices. But COLA increases and decreases have been tied to the CPI since the 1970s. That’s the law, not the President.