neil irwin joins us, a "new york times" senior economic correspondent. good to see you, neil.hanks for joining us. you know, an enormous amount of people rely on social security, of course. the question is why is the cost of living increase so small, especially recently? >> well, the simple answer is inflation is very low. energy prices have been falling. food prices this year have fallen some. that said, as the segment said, you know, there's plenty of costs, especially seniors and especially people on skoeshl social security receive that are rising faster, and health care is a big one. >> that begs the question whether or not we need to change the way it's calculated. i mean, because if it doesn't include some of those things that are moving higher like the cost of fooled, like the cost of health care, is it really calculated in the correct way? >> yeah. there's an interesting question, should you calculate is on the basket of goods, things that especially seniors and especially retires are consuming, and would that be a higher number and probably a slightly different number