After Twitter added a “context” remark explaining that the rise was related to a 1972 legislation requiring automatic increases based on cost of living changes, the White House removed a tweet on Wednesday praising an increase in Social Security benefits for seniors.
The tweet, which was published to the official White House account at 4:45 p.m. on Nov. 1, stated, “Through President Biden’s work, seniors are enjoying the biggest boost in their Social Security checks in 10 years.” The tweet vanished from the White House feed on Wednesday.
AWN followed up with the White House after the tweet was deleted and learned that “the message was missing” in the deleted post. The White House had first declined to comment on the “context” earlier on Wednesday. The official also pointed AWN toward a longer statement made by Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, last month.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Jean-Pierre expanded on the deleted tweet and once more cited the earlier White House statement.
The tweet was incomplete, I know. It did not have that context, which is typical when we write a tweet, according to Jean-Pierre. Therefore, we have already noted that seniors’ Medicare premiums will decline for the first time in more than ten years even as their Social Security payouts climb. That’s a small amount of context that was left out.
The tweet’s record spike was linked to inflation, which peaked in June at its highest level in forty years, according to the context annotation, which was available Wednesday morning.
The annotation included a link to a history of the law on the official Social Security Administration website and stated, “Seniors will get a big Social Security benefit boost due to the yearly cost of living adjustment, which is based on the inflation rate.
“Context is written by people who use Twitter, and appears when judged helpful by others,” reads a description accompanying the annotation.
