It has been my custom for most of the past 23 years to write a year-end column that summarizes the Social Security changes and updates scheduled to take place the following year.
Almost all Social Security beneficiaries are familiar with the most popular and publicized upcoming change: the increase in monthly benefit checks for 2020 due to the automated cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. In fact, Social Security recipients have probably already received a letter from the Social Security Administration telling them of the expected increase.
All Social Security checks are going up 1.6% in 2020. The COLA is based on something called the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. This is the official measuring stick SSA has used to determine COLAs for the past 46 years. If you want to learn more about this measure, check out the website of the folks who maintain it: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You’ll find them at https://www.bls.gov.
I always dread mentioning COLAs in this column because every single time I do, I am flooded with emails from readers complaining that the increase is not enough. (Maybe not unexpectedly, not once in 23 years has anyone ever written to me to say that their COLA increase was too high.)
Yet hereβs the rub: Many economists and social planners believe Social Security COLAs are too generous. (Iβve explained why in past columns, but I donβt have the space to get into that argument today.) Thatβs why most discussions of long-range reform for Social Security include proposals to reduce cost-of-living increases.
OK, back to the 2020 Social Security COLA. Due to these increases, the average monthly retirement check will be $1,503 in 2020, a $24 increase from the 2019 level. The maximum Social Security check for a worker retiring at age 66 next year will be $3,011, compared to $2,861 in 2019. And please note that $3,011 is the maximum for someone turning 66 next year. That does not mean it is the maximum Social Security payment anyone can receive. There are millions of Social Security beneficiaries who get much more than that, primarily because they work well past age 66 and/or delay starting their benefits until age 70.
Although this is a Social Security column, I must mention the upcoming increase in the Medicare Part B premium, which is deducted from Social Security checks for most people. In 2020, the basic Part B premium will be $144.60, a $9.10 increase from the 2019 rate. Some people will pay less than that because of the muddled mess involving the βhold harmlessβ provision of the law that essentially says an increase in the Part B premium cannot reduce the net amount of your monthly Social Security check. And wealthy people will pay more than the basic premium β as much as $491.60 per month for the richest Americans.
I donβt want to get into this complicated issue of Medicare premiums other than to make this quick point. Even though they are linked in the minds of most, Social Security and Medicare are separate programs, administered by separate federal agencies, and they have separate rules and regulations regarding their benefit and payment structures. For example, I already explained how Social Security COLAs are figured. Part B Medicare premium increases have nothing to do with the consumer price index. Instead, they must be set at a level that covers 25% of the cost of running the program. (Taxpayers pick up the rest.)
Another measuring stick called the βnational wage indexβ is used to set increases to other provisions of the law that affect Social Security beneficiaries and taxpayers. Specifically, this includes increases in the amount of wages or self-employment income subject to Social Security tax β the amount of income needed to earn a βquarter of coverageβ β and the Social Security earnings penalty limits.
The Social Security taxable earnings base will go up from $132,900 this year to $137,700 in 2020. In other words, people who earn more than $137,700 next year will no longer have Social Security payroll taxes deducted from their paychecks once they hit that threshold. This has always been a very controversial provision of the law. (Bill Gates pays the same amount of Social Security tax as his plumber.) Normally, I would bet my next pension check that any eventual Social Security reform package will include a sharp increase in that wage base. But with the anti-tax Republicans controlling the Senate and the White House, Iβm not so sure.
Most people need 40 Social Security work credits (sometimes called βquarters of coverageβ) to be eligible for monthly benefit checks from the system. In 2019, people who were working earned one credit for each $1,360 in Social Security taxable income. But no one earns more than four credits per year. In other words, once you made $5,440, your Social Security record has been credited with the maximum four credits or quarters of coverage. Next year, the one credit limit goes up to $1,410, meaning you will have to earn $5,640 in 2020 before you get the maximum four credits assigned to your Social Security account.
People under age 66 who get Social Security retirement or survivors benefits but are still working are subject to limits in the amount of money they can earn and still receive all their Social Security checks. That limit was $17,640 this year and will be $18,240 in 2020. For every $2 a person earns over those limits, $1 is withheld from his or her monthly benefits.
There is a higher earnings threshold in the year a person turns 66 that applies from the beginning of the year until the month the person turns 66. (The income penalty goes away once a person reaches that full retirement age.) That threshold goes up from $46,920 in 2019 to $48,600 next year.
A couple of other Social Security provisions are also impacted by inflationary increases. For example, people getting disability benefits who try to work can generally continue getting those benefits as long as they are not working at a βsubstantialβ level. In 2019, the law defined substantial work as any job paying $1,220 or more per month. Next year, that substantial earnings level increases to $1,260 monthly.
Finally, the Supplemental Security Income basic federal payment level for one person goes up from $771 this year to $783 in 2020. SSI is a federal welfare program administered by the SSA, but it is not a Social Security benefit. It is paid for out of general revenues, not Social Security taxes.
