Am I wrong that Obama's chained CPI proposal exempts the bottom 20% of seniors?

[Yo_Mama]

91. I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised by the answer!!!

Note that senior household incomes will continue to decline in the coming years, but 28% of senior households already have incomes of 20K or less:


More than half of all senior households have incomes less than 35K a year.

Compare that to the US national median household income around 50K a year. 67% of all senior households have incomes of 50K a year or less.

Over 7% of all senior households have incomes less than 10K. Over 18% of senior households have incomes less than 15K. Over 28% of senior households have incomes less than 20K. Thus the cut kicks in probably around 16-17K a year. Perhaps you think these people are just rolling in clover. I'd say no.

You are talking about cutting incomes for a bunch of senior households with less than 20K in annual income, and many of those household contain 2 people!!!.

Over 37% of all senior households have incomes of less than 25K annually, and again, many of those are two person households.

So yes, the middle income senior households ARE doing that badly. Also the "higher" income groups actually have lower living standards than it would appear. The lowest income seniors get Medicaid, so they don't pay the Medicare part A premiums ($1,200 plus annually), or the 20% copay and deductibles. And they are on food stamps. As soon as you get beyond that level, most of the senior households are paying that, which promptly lops about another 3K a year of their "real" incomes, which does not show up in the Census figures.

So lop another 3K off the incomes of the 15% of senior households who have income between 25 and 35K a year.

You can confirm that the above figures are correct by referring to the 2011 Census data at this page:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032012/hhinc/hinc02_000.htm

Use the top table and scroll down to find the 65 and over table.