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• The median income for all U.S. households fell by 6.6 percent, when inflation was taken into account, according to census data. But the median income for households headed by someone 65 or older rose by 13 percent.
• "That's all because of Social Security," Certner said. "Social Security has the COLA and that's what's keeping seniors above water, as opposed to everybody else who's struggling in this economy."
• Seniors still, on average, have lower incomes than younger adults. Most older Americans rely on Social Security for a majority of their income, according to the Social Security Administration.
• "It's useful to bear in mind that no other group in the economy gets an automatic cost-of-living increase in their income," said David Blau, an economist at The Ohio State University. "Seniors are the only group."
• Still, many feel like the COLA doesn't cover their rising costs.
• "You have utilities go up, your food costs go up. Think about how much groceries have gone up," said Janice Durflinger, a 76-year-old widow in Lincoln, Neb. "I would love to know how they figure that."
• The COLA is based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a broad measure of consumer prices generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures price changes for food, housing, clothing, transportation, energy, medical care, recreation and education.
• In the past year, food prices have risen 2 percent while home energy prices have dropped 3.8 percent, according to the CPI-W. Housing costs have climbed by 1.4 percent and gasoline prices have increased by 1.8 percent.
• Blau said it's common for seniors to feel like the COLA doesn't reflect their rising costs, in part because older people tend to spend more of their income on health care. Medical costs have risen 4.3 percent in the past year as measured by the CPI-W.
• "Inflation affects everybody differently unless you happen to be that mythical average person who buys the average bundle of goods," Blau said.
• By law, the Social Security Administration compares the price index for July, August and September with consumer prices in the same three months from the last year in which a COLA was awarded. A COLA was awarded a year ago, so the index from July, August and September of this year is being compared with the index from the same period in 2011.
• If prices go up over the course of the year, benefits go up, starting with payments delivered in January. But if prices go down, benefits stay the same. That's what happened in 2010 and 2011, when there was no COLA.

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