Biden Claims Credit for Inflation-Driven Social Security Raise in Florida, Days Before GOP Rout (November 1, 2022)

A week before the 2022 midterms, President Joe Biden flew to South Florida to warn seniors that Republicans were coming for Social Security and Medicare, and to take credit for the biggest Social Security raise in four decades. “On my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks,” he told the crowd [1].

They weren’t. Seniors had gotten a cost-of-living raise in each of the six years before, and the 2023 raise was big for one reason: inflation [2]. The video above shows the moment at the OB Johnson Community Center in Hallandale Beach on Nov. 1, 2022. Quotes are from the White House’s official transcript [1].

”For the First Time in 10 Years”

“And for years, the fee you paid for Medicare to cover your visit to your doctor’s office has gone up. Now, for the first time in more than a decade, it’s going to go down,” Biden said. “And on my watch, for the first time in 10 years, seniors are getting an increase in their Social Security checks … So, checks are going to be up and Medicare payments are going to be down” [1].

The Social Security Administration’s own records tell the story [2]:

8.7%: the cost-of-living adjustment announced in 2022 for checks paid starting in January 2023, the largest since 1981.
5.9%: the raise seniors had already received at the start of 2022, on Biden’s watch.
Every year from 2016 through 2021, Social Security announced a raise for the following year. The last time it announced none was in 2015.

The adjustment is automatic and tied to the cost of living, so the jump was a measure of how fast prices were climbing. Less than three weeks before Biden spoke, the Labor Department reported consumer prices were up 8.2% over 12 months [3].

The White House Deletes a Tweet

The White House pushed the same message online. “Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden’s leadership,” it tweeted the day of the speech [4].

Twitter’s Community Notes feature added context saying the increase was “due to the annual cost of living adjustment, which is based on the inflation rate.” The next day, the White House deleted the tweet, Fox News reported [4]. Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, cheered: “The community notes feature is awesome. Our goal is to make Twitter the most accurate source of information on Earth, without regard to political affiliation” [4].

Biden was on firmer ground with Medicare. The standard Part B premium did drop for 2023, to $164.90 a month, $5.20 less than in 2022 [5].

”A War in Iraq”

Biden also stumbled while blaming inflation on world events. “Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq and the impact on oil, and what Russia is doing—I mean, excuse me, the war in Ukraine,” he said. “I’m thinking of Iraq because that’s where my son died” [1].

Beau Biden spent a year in Iraq with the military, as his father noted at the start of the speech [1], but he died of brain cancer in 2015 [6]. Biden has said he believes burn pit exposure caused the cancer: “I can’t prove it yet,” he said in a 2019 speech. Three weeks before the Florida trip, he had told a Colorado audience that Beau “lost his life in Iraq,” which Fox News called an erroneous claim [6].

Taking Aim at Rick Scott

Biden saved his sharpest words for Florida’s own Sen. Rick Scott, then the head of the Senate GOP campaign arm. Holding up Scott’s plan, Biden read: “All federal legislation sunsets … in five years. If [the] law is worth keeping, Congress [will] pass it again” [1].

“A senator from Florida going after Medicare and Social Security?” Biden asked as the crowd booed [1]. He also went after Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., saying every Republican in Congress voted against the Inflation Reduction Act’s drug savings, “including Senator Rubio” [1].

And he accused Republican leaders of planning to use the debt limit to force cuts: “They’re going to shut down the government by not providing the votes to pay our federal debt” [1].

By the Numbers

8.7%: the 2023 Social Security raise, the largest since 1981’s 11.2% [2].
8.2%: the 12-month rise in consumer prices reported in October 2022 [3].
$164.90: the 2023 Medicare Part B premium, down $5.20 [5].
59% to 40%: Gov. Ron DeSantis’ margin over Democrat Charlie Crist a week later [7].
4,474,847 to 3,201,522: Rubio’s official margin over Democrat Val Demings, about 57.7% to 41.3% [8].

What Happened Next

Florida went red. Biden’s trip also included a fundraiser for Crist and a rally for Florida Democrats [9]. A week later, DeSantis crushed Crist by about 19 points [7] and Rubio beat Demings by more than 1.2 million votes [8].

Scott changed his plan. In February 2023, fed up with the Democratic attacks, Scott amended his proposal to add “specific exceptions for Social Security, Medicare, national security, veterans’ benefits, and other essential services,” Fox News reported [10].

Biden declared “unanimity.” In his State of the Union that month, Biden accused “some Republicans” of wanting Medicare and Social Security to sunset, then announced to applause: “So, folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now, right? They’re not to be touched? All right. All right. We’ve got unanimity!” [11].

Rubio got a promotion. The senator Biden singled out in Hallandale Beach became President Trump’s secretary of state, confirmed 99-0 on Jan. 20, 2025, the first member of Trump’s second-term Cabinet [12].

The raises got smaller as inflation cooled. Social Security’s next adjustment, announced in 2023, was 3.2% [2].

For Biden’s debt claims on the same swing, see his Philadelphia rally four days later, and for the Rick Scott fight, his October speech in Portland, Oregon.