Tweaking the way the government measures inflation sounds like an obscure method to help reduce budget deficits, but over time it would lead to significantly lower Social Security benefits while increasing taxes, mainly on low- and middle-income families.

Deep divisions among Senate Democrats over whether cuts to popular benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid should be part of a plan to slow the government's mushrooming debt pose a big obstacle to a deal for avoiding a potentially economy-crushing "fiscal cliff," even if Republicans agree to raise taxes.

President Barack Obama isn't talking about it and neither is Mitt Romney. But come January, 163 million workers can expect to feel the pinch of a big tax increase regardless of who wins the election.

More than 56 million Social Security recipients will see their monthly payments go up by 1.7 percent next year.

Social Security recipients won't be getting big benefit increases next year, but the small raises they will receive are playing an important role in helping seniors grow their incomes even as younger workers lose ground.

The Internet is abuzz with conspiracies about enforcement agents' stockpiles of hollow-point ammuntion. The organization claims they're a necessary tool.

Given a choice in an Associated Press poll, 53 percent of adults said they would rather raise taxes than cut Social Security benefits for future generations.

The program's benefits could be preserved for generations to come with modest but politically difficult changes to benefits or taxes, or a combination of both.