Why is This Even News?

Social security recipients are getting no raise this year! Oh, no!! Our seniors are going to die in poverty! At least, that's what the headline writers want you to think. Oh, wait. They aren't getting a raise because inflation hasn't gone up... and they got the biggest raise in a quarter century in 2009, due to the high energy prices in '08 - which promptly free fell and left them with a tidy sum. So let me get this straight, people are complaining about no raise, even though they recently got - and kept! - a huge raise right before energy costs dropped through the floor and erased the need for the large size of the raise... and inflation has been practically nil since then.