Missing something?

I love how the Washington Post reports a 5.8% increase in Social Security benefits with no mention — not a one, in the whole article — about how much it’ll cost. Do we have money trees now?

This year’s 5.8 percent increase will take effect in January for about 50 million people who receive Social Security benefits, and at the end of this year for the 7 million recipients of Supplemental Security Income. For the average Social Security recipient that will translate into an extra $63 a month, with benefits rising from $1,090 to $1,153.

The amount of income taxable in 2009 for purposes of Social Security will also increase, from $102,000 to $106,800.

The Social Security COLA forms the basis as well for increases in several federal pension formulas.

For the approximately 1.5 million people who retired under the old Civil Service Retirement System, benefits will rise by the full 5.8 percent. The same increase will apply to roughly 2 million military retirees and about 12,000 retired Foreign Service officers.

Retirees under the more recent Federal Employees Retirement System will receive a 4.8 percent increase, according to information on the Office of Personnel Management Web site.

If you do the math only on the estimated increase of $63 per month in benefits for 50 million recipients of Social Security, it comes out to $21.6 billion in new spending — which hardly seems like anything these days, but which, one would hope, still gets counted.