(NEXSTAR) – The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan group dedicated to informing older Americans about legal, rights, and financial matters affecting their age group, has suggested that the Social Security Administration consider a “one-time catchup payment” to assist retirees in managing the rising costs due to inflation.

Termed as a “make-up payment” by The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), this “catchup payment” is intended to supplement next year’s cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for Social Security recipients, according to the group.

“Retirees have faced a significant decrease in their buying power as Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs) have not matched the quick rise in prices of essentials like food, housing, and healthcare,” according to a statement TSCL shared with Nexstar.

Which rising costs are seniors facing?

In a press release from last month, TSCL estimated next year’s COLA to be 2.6% — which is 0.1% more than this year’s growth. Even though these increases aim to keep up with inflation and help Social Security recipients preserve their purchasing power, TSCL has consistently argued that the methods used to calculate the yearly increases (such as the Bureau of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners, a measure of changes in prices for common consumer goods and services) do not include the expenses that elderly Americans face for items like medicine, housing, and groceries.

A recent survey by TSCL, involving nearly 2,000 Social Security recipients, showed that one in five respondents were spending over $1,000 solely on healthcare. Additionally, a vast majority (96%) felt that the Social Security Administration should use different data, like the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, which targets costs impacting Americans aged 62 and older, for their COLA calculations. 

“Many older Americans witnessed their Social Security purchasing power diminish during the recent inflation surge, with soaring Medicare Part B premiums often negating their entire COLA increase,” TSCL executive director Shannon Benton told Nexstar. “A catch-up payment would help recover that lost value and offer much-needed relief for retirees surviving on fixed incomes.”

Earlier this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics also stopped collecting data for its indexes in three cities and reduced collection efforts in about 15% of 72 other metro areas, sparking concerns that the more limited data might be less reflective of the prices seniors are paying. (BLS, however, claimed in July that its new practices did not result in any significant changes when compared to previous methods.)

“If the government fails to act and the CPI’s data quality begins to erode, it increases the likelihood of the government providing a COLA that doesn’t match inflation,” TSCL wrote at the time.

How would a ‘catchup payment’ help?

TSCL didn’t go into much detail about the specifics of its proposed “catchup payment” in last month’s press release. But in an email shared with Nexstar, TSCL suggested the money could be provided to eligible recipients in the same way that that 2009’s $250 Economic Recovery Payments were doled out to Social Security and SSI recipients amid the Great Recession. (A third of recipients ultimately used the money to pay off debt, the BLS later reported.)

Benton also pointed to the Economic Impact Payments, which provided to eligible U.S. citizens during the coronavirus pandemic, as evidence that special financial assistance can, and has, been disbursed by the federal government amid times of economic uncertainty.

How much does TSCL envision the payment to be?

$1,400, Benton told Nexstar. And while TSCL advocates specifically for seniors, Benton said the organization would be “thrilled if everyone on Social Security could receive a special boost.”

A representative for the Social Security Administration did not return a request for comment on the proposal.

Make-up payments aside, the majority of seniors surveyed for TSCL’s recent report still believe there are fundamental problems with how the Social Security Administration attempts to mitigate the effects of inflation when it comes to yearly benefit increases.

“If four in five seniors think inflation was higher than the government reported in 2024, maybe we should stop questioning their experiences and start questioning why the COLA is failing to measure them,” Benton said at the time.