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Senate Aging Committee: Members, economists tie recent inflation to federal spending and warn seniors are bearing the cost
Summary
At a Senate Special Committee on Aging hearing, lawmakers and witnesses linked recent high inflation to pandemic-era and subsequent federal spending, stressing that seniors on fixed incomes face disproportionate harms and outlining competing policy responses.
Senator Tim Scott, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging, opened a committee hearing saying inflation “has been a serious issue plaguing American families and their seniors over the past 4 years.”
The hearing brought economists and advocates who described how inflation and rising interest rates have reduced seniors’ purchasing power, shrunk retirement-account values and raised the cost of long-term care and medicines.
The committee’s first witness, Mr. Ferri, identified excessive demand produced by large federal deficits and pandemic-era spending as a major driver of 2021–22 price surges. “The third of those, the $1,900,000,000,000 American Rescue Plan, was too much…
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