In 10/99 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a Consumer Price Index (CPI) amount that resulted in SSA establishing a COLA of 2.4% effective 12/99. In 9/00 the BLS announced the discovery of an error in the software used to compute the earlier CPI amount. If not for this error SSA's COLA for 12/99 would have been 2.5%. As a result of special legislation concerning this error, in 7/01 SSA adjusted the COLA for those affected and made a special one-time payment to make up for any shortfall they experienced from 12/99 through 6/01. All payments made before 7/01 were based on the 2.4% increase and are considered to be correct. They will remain posted as paid. This section explains the July 2001 increase. All information about the special one-time payment is now in RS 00601.123.

The 7/01 COLA affects only those with an eligibility year prior to 2000. The 7/01 COLA did not increase benefits for those eligible after 1999. The Interactive Computation Facility program 15 will compute the increase for 7/01. See MSOM ICFT2 015.001 for instructions. To determine the increase in 7/01 manually take the following steps: