The White House on Wednesday deleted a tweet crediting President Biden for increasing the size of Social Security payments, which had actually gone up because of a cost-of-living increase tied to inflation.
The tweet was removed after Twitter added a clarification to the message amid widespread criticism from Republicans.
“Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” the White House tweeted.
Twitter immediately added context to the post, pointing out that the large benefit increase is an automatic cost-of-living adjustment based on the rate of inflation as required under federal law.
Under Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk, the social media platform is now adding “context” appendages when a tweet meets certain eligibility requirements. Twitter users can now rate the helpfulness of the added fact-check and background information.
“The community notes feature is awesome,” Mr. Musk tweeted Wednesday in a response to questions about the note. “Our goal is to make Twitter the most accurate source of information on Earth, without regard to political affiliation.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the tweet was removed because it lacked “context.”
“The tweet was not complete. Usually when we put out a tweet we post it with context and it did not have that context,” she told reporters at the daily White House press briefing.
Social Security benefits will jump by 8.7% next year, the largest cost-of-living adjustment since 1981. However, that increase is based on the Consumer Price Index from the third quarter of 2021 to the third quarter of 2022 to account for inflation that is running near a 40-year high.
Republican lawmakers slammed the White House tweet, using it to hammer Mr. Biden for inflation and the economy.
“Next year’s Social Security increase will be one of the largest in decades b/c of Biden’s disastrous policies, which have caused prices to rise, fueled record inflation, & cut into critical retirement savings,” tweeted Rep. Claudia Tenney, New York Republican.
Rising prices are expected to hurt Democrats in next week’s midterm election, giving Republicans a strong chance of flipping one or both chambers of Congress.
Inflation hit a 41-year high of 9.1% in June and was 8.2% in September. It has remained stubbornly high even as the government tries to get it under control with moves such as aggressive interest rate hikes.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed that inflation is the most urgent concern of voters. The poll revealed that 36% of Americans said inflation was their top concern, up 9 percentage points from the same poll in August.
The poll found that 54% of Americans said the price of gas and consumer goods is the most concerning economic issue while 25% said the cost of housing or rent, 12% said the stock market and 5% said their job situation.
• Dave Boyer contributed to this report
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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