Which is leading some retirees, who sense that inflation was higher than this, to wonder just how the index is calculated. Fix this purported statistical problem, and the government could save a lot of money in smaller yearly increases in social security. Popkin says the government has no business tinkering with the CPI until statisticians get a better handle on just the kind of goods social security recipients tend to buy. The items that retired people buy are likely to be different from those that the average population buys. Think of medical care services, while retired people may spend more on medical care services than the average consumer the medical care services that they buy are likely to be quite different.
Younger people get certain diseases and older people get different diseases.
And the rates of change of prices of two different kinds of medical procedures can differ. And so it's very important to pick up the kinds of things that retired people buy. For example, there is some difference in the distribution of the population geographically in the u.s. And so you would want to sample more heavily in those areas for price information. And the other thing is perhaps the kinds of stores that retired people shop in may in fact be different than the average consumer.