Social Security's COLA will be 2.5% in 2025, down from 3.2% in 2024

[DFW]

22. Except for the medical coverage, don't be too quick to envy the Europeans, unless they are ex-members of the government

My wife is a retired social worker, and she got an increase in her monthly payments as a handicapped twice-survivor of cancer. So her payments (taxable) went up all the way to maybe €1450 ($1600) a month. Whoopie. At $1600 a month minus German taxes, you may or may not be able to pay rent and eat here in Germany. Curiously, she does get a bonus most Germans do not have. Being married to a US citizen who paid in the max almost all his working life (working from 1975, max SS tax from 1979-present) and is now collecting social security, she is entitled to a (also taxable at 50%) ±$950 per month from US Social Security as well. We hadn't the slightest idea about this. The FBU at the American embassy in Warsaw, Poland (!) told us about it, and sent us the paperwork. The US Consulate in Frankfurt confirmed it, approved the paperwork, and sure enough, she started getting the payments a little over a year ago. It's not a fortune, but when your own government gives you a retirement payment of $1600 a month minus taxes, it counts.

Ex-Ministers and members of Parliament get big benefits, of course, and if you are/were part of the European Commission in Brussels, I was told you get something like €10,000 a month tax-free for life. That is approaching the "must be nice" category.