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| Photo Credit: AP. |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Seventy-year-old Cassandra Gentry is looking forward to a hefty cost-of-living increase in her Social Security benefits — not for herself but to pay for haircuts for her two grandchildren and put food on the table.
The three
live in a Washington apartment building that houses 50 “grandfamilies” — where
grandparents take care of children who do not have parents present.
Gentry, who
took in her grandkids to keep them in a safe environment, says the boost in
benefits will help her make ends meet. “I never thought about contributing to
Social Security when I was working, but now that’s what I depend on,” the
communications retiree said. “I depend on my Social Security to care for these
kids.”
Social
Security’s cost of living adjustment, otherwise known as the COLA, for 2023 is
expected to be around 9% or even higher, the highest in 40 years, analysts
estimate. It will be announced Thursday morning.
It’s not
just old people who will gain. About 4 million children receive benefits, and
an untold number of others also will be helped because they’re being cared for
by Social Security beneficiaries, sometimes their grandparents.
The impact
will be immense, especially for low-income retirees like Gentry, who feels the
painful sting of high food and energy costs as she cares for a growing
12-year-old granddaughter and 16-year-old grandson. “They eat everything,” she
joked.
She said the
financial boost “is going to help us, and it’s going to be a benefit because
the cost of everything has gone up.”
High
inflation remains a burden on the broader economy, which has caused the Federal
Reserve to raise interest rates in hopes of cooling high prices.
But in many
ways, inflation hits older Americans harder than the rest of the population.
Medical costs are a big part of the burden.
Coupled with
a decline in Medicare Part B premium, the Social Security COLA will put more
money in the hands of the 70 million Americans who receive benefits, including
the growing number of grandfamilies like Gentry’s. According to the U.S.
Census, in 2020, there were about 2.4 million grandparents responsible their
grandchildren.
That number
has increased exponentially since the government has adopted a “kinship care”
approach to child welfare, which centers on keeping kids in homes with their
next of kin, as opposed to foster care.
And in turn,
while Social Security is generally regarded as a program for older Americans,
it also is the nation’s largest children’s support program.
Since the
pandemic, Social Security has become even more important for children, as
“COVID has taken a lot of parents,” said Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, a
nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Metro, which is part of the Brookings
Institution, and the CEO of Global Policy Solutions, a social change strategy
firm.
The National
Institutes of Health reported last October that at least 140,000 U.S. children
under age 18 had lost a parent or guardian due to COVID.
Cummings
says she estimates the actual number is much higher. “We should understand the
increase in the COLA will have a positive net benefit on the entire household —
not just older members of the family,” she said.
Gentry is an
advocate for grandparents who raise their grandkids, and the building her
family lives in is at capacity. She said many of the grandparents, who are
African American and support each other in their tight-knit community, rely
solely on Social Security for their income.
A study by
Global Policy Solutions shows that African American children are in the
greatest need of the added help from Social Security benefits.
Grandparent
caregivers are 60% more likely to live in poverty than are grandparents not
raising grandchildren, according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
The Child
Tax Credit program, which was expanded during the pandemic, helped tens of
millions of kids and their families, contributing to a 46% decline in child
poverty since 2020, according to a September Census report.
But that
program has ended and already there are indications t hat child poverty is
increasing.
Nancy
Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, an advocacy group, said “benefits
in many other federal programs are eroding — but the COLA makes Social Security
unique.”
“And for the
children who receive Social Security benefits,” both directly and indirectly,
“low-income kids benefit the most,” she said.
William
Arnone, chief executive of the National Academy of Social Insurance, an
advocacy organization for Social Security, said while the expected COLA is
“generous, it is just a catch-up” for many older Americans who are often more
impacted by price hikes caused by inflation, especially grandparents taking
care of grandkids.
“With Social
Security, all generations benefit,” Arnone said.
Gentry said
she hopes more grandfamily communities like hers pop up around the country so
residents can provide support for one another when resources are not readily
available.
She said
she’d also like to see more federal programs factor in grandparents like her
when making policy determinations.
“I always say our grandparents are heroes,
because we stepped in when nobody else would,” she said. “And we did the job.”