Wednesday morning my neighbor knocked with his coffee still in his hand.
He did not want to talk about the Senate. He wanted to know if his January raise was safe.
Fair question. Short answer: yes.
Here is what Tuesday did change. CBS News projects Democrats will run both chambers when the new Congress sits on January 3. The President keeps the veto. That sets up two years of standoffs, and the first deadline is already on the calendar.
Some of us will want a hedge against those standoffs. This week’s first partner makes the case for one.
Now the part the election coverage missed.
Most of the money people our age live on runs on formulas, not votes.
The Social Security raise comes from an inflation index measured July through September. The required withdrawal from an IRA is due by December 31. The birthdays keep arriving at the same pace. None of it waited for Tuesday.
The required minimum distribution, or RMD, is the slice the IRS makes you pull from a retirement account each year. It starts at 73.
Not a forecast. A schedule already printed.
So the real question is not whether the raise comes. It is where the raise goes. Three numbers tell you.
72M
Social Security beneficiaries getting the 2027 cost-of-living raise, the COLA
$75
The average monthly bump for a retired worker, starting in January
0.07%
What the average interest checking account pays, October 2026
Every one of those checks arrives by direct deposit now. Washington phased out paper benefit checks in the fall of 2025.
So the raise lands in a checking account. At 0.07%, a $10,000 balance earns about $7 a year.
From the chair at your kitchen table, that is a rounding error. From the other chair, it is the cheapest money in America.
That is the second-order effect nobody prints in the COLA story. When 72 million checks get a raise, the banks holding them get a raise too. Their cheapest funding grows on a schedule, with no marketing budget.
Where the cohort’s money sits this quarter, and where the January raise flows first.
The catch is real, and it cuts both ways. A bank keeps cheap deposits only while its customers stay put. High-yield savings accounts pay far more, and moving money takes one afternoon. The bank also lends that money out, so a bad loan book can eat the whole advantage.
Which raises a question most of us never ask. Legally, a deposit is a loan you make to the bank. The bank owns the money and owes you the balance.
Deposit insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, per account category. Our second partner wrote a guide on exactly that question.
The arithmetic
Control of Congress: CBS News projections, November 4, 2026 (Democrats projected to hold at least 54 Senate seats; House estimate of 251 to 268 seats). 2027 COLA of 3.6%, about 72 million Social Security beneficiaries, about $75 a month for the average retired worker: Social Security Administration, October 2026. Interest checking national rate of 0.07%: FDIC national rates, October 2026. Paper benefit checks phased out September 30, 2025: Executive Order 14247, March 25, 2025. RMD age 73 and December 31 deadline: IRS. Deposit insurance limit of $250,000: FDIC. The $7 a year on a $10,000 balance is Boomers Trade’s own arithmetic.
My neighbor went home happy about the raise. Then he asked what his checking account pays. Neither of us knew. That is the homework before January: one call to the bank. The formula already did its part.
Andrew
Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.
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