Today is a big day for retirees like 78-year-old Bonnie Ferguson, who is among the nearly two-thirds of older Social Security beneficiaries who receive most of their income from those government checks.

The Social Security Administration will announce how much bigger payments will be in 2009 for the Manor, Armstrong County, widow and some 50 million other Americans who receive the federal benefits for retirees, the disabled and their survivors or dependents.

The annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, will likely approach 6 percent -- the biggest boost in more than a quarter-century.

Any joy over that raise, however, will be tempered by recipients' recognition of how much they've been paying for everyday needs compared to the past. As but one example, Ms. Ferguson said her budget-plan monthly payments to heat her modest home are up 54 percent in the past year, to $94.

"I can remember when my father would say many years ago, 'You know, Bonnie Lou, someday a loaf of bread will cost a dollar.' Well, he would be amazed at what it is today," said Ms. Ferguson, explaining that she had to dip into savings for the first time this year to cover basic expenses such as car insurance and health care coverage to supplement Medicare.

Leaving aside the recent stock market turmoil that is ravaging investment accounts, households of all ages have been hard-hit by increases in what they pay for food, gasoline, utilities and other staples. Such inflation means even more to seniors because their income -- though maintained above the poverty line in 90 percent of older households -- is generally lower than for working-age adults, with little flexibility to increase it.

In an AARP survey this year, 59 percent of individuals 65 and older reported having a harder time paying for food, fuel and medicine than in the past.

Some senior groups contend the Social Security COLA, whether at 6 percent or at last year's 2.3 percent or any amount, is unfair to older adults because it fails to adequately account for the increasing cost of things that matter most to them.

The Senior Citizens League, a national advocacy group, estimated this week that the COLA hike would be 5.8 percent. That would take the average retiree's monthly check from $1,079 to about $1,141, but the group called it nothing to applaud.

"On the surface, a 5.8 percent COLA sounds really good, but it's not really good enough," said Shannon Benton, executive director of the league, which was founded by military retirees and claims to look out for interests of the low- to moderate-income elderly.

A study by the group covering the 2000-08 span said the COLA had increased average Social Security paychecks by 24 percent, but that "typical senior expenses" had risen by 88 percent in the same period.

It cited increases of 183 percent for gasoline, 137 percent for eggs, 112 percent for Medicare Part B premiums, 49 percent for brand-name drugs, and a host of other price hikes. Clothing, basic phone service and postage were exceptions as items that did not rise faster than the COLA.

The league has lobbied Congress unsuccessfully to change the way the COLA is calculated. It has been set since 1975 on the government's Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W.

Though the Bureau of Labor Statistics subsequently developed a CPI-E, tracking the spending habits of elderly consumers and giving more weight to factors such as health care costs, it has never been adopted as a measure for the Social Security COLA. If the CPI-E had been used since 1984, according to the Senior Citizens League, monthly benefits for retirees would average about $75 more than they do now.

"It isn't the one single thing that would solve the problems of seniors, but it would be one immediate helpful step not costing a huge amount," said league spokesman Brad Phillips.

The idea of changing the COLA calculation has gained no traction in Congress. Representatives of the Social Security Administration and Bureau of Labor Statistics said yesterday the agencies had taken no position on the change.

So for now, Bonnie Ferguson and millions like her will depend on the checks and whatever other earnings exist to meet their expenses.

"When I retired, I could get by on my Social Security and a small pension from where I worked," as a clerk for Armstrong County, she recalled, while explaining that those days have ended.