Social Security Won't Get Boost in 2011

It looks like there will be no increase in Social Security benefits for the second year in a row. The bureau plans to announce this week that inflation hasn't been high enough this year to merit a cost-of-living increase. America's 58 million Social Security recipients haven't had a raise since January 2009, and analysts believe the lack of a 2011 increase will deal yet another blow to the Democrats' electoral hopes.

"If you're the ruling party, this is not the sort of thing you want to have happening two weeks before an election," a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration tells the AP. "It's not the congressional Democrats' fault, but that's the way politics works," he said. "A lot of people will feel hostile about it." (More Social Security stories.)