In the Nov. 1 letter “Nov. 5 will make or break America,” the writer states, “When Trump was in office we got two raises in our Social Security checks. How many with Biden?” This statement is incorrect. The president does not set Social Security cost-of-living adjustments.

On the website Factcheck.org, an article by Lori Roberson posted Nov. 3, 2022 clarifies how Social Security cost-of-living increases are determined: “Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are tied to inflation, specifically the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index. The CPI usually goes up every year — though there have been a few years when the CPI was flat, and seniors didn’t get a Social Security increase. The last time that happened was in 2015.”

This year’s cost-of-living adjustment was 3.2%, and in January 2025 there will be a 2.5% increase, according to the Social Security Administration. You can find a table of the annual cost-of-living increases from 1975 to the present on the Social Security website: ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html.

The writer also wants to know how much Kamala Harris earns. According to Forbes, “Vice President Kamala Harris has released 20 years of personal tax returns, stretching back to the earliest days of her political career. While running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, she disclosed 15 returns — more than any of her rivals except President Biden, who has been releasing tax returns over the course of his long political career. Since her election as vice president, Harris has released another five returns in tandem with Biden’s annual disclosures.”

Do you know how many income tax returns Trump has released? From January 2017 to January 2021, he didn’t release any. In 2018, he sued to prevent his tax returns from being released by the IRS or his accountants. Finally, after six years of appeals, his accounting firm released eight years of his tax returns. What do you think he was hiding? Which candidate is more transparent?

I am also not sure what point the writer is trying to make by stating that Kamala Harris was a lawyer. Yes. She and 27 other U.S. presidents have been lawyers. Our presidents have also served in the military and worked in government as senators, representatives, state governors and vice presidents. These are all good qualifications.

Donald Trump is one of five presidents in our history who has never been elected to public office before becoming president. Of those five, three were generals, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The fourth, Herbert Hoover, contributed to the Treaty of Versailles and served in the cabinet as the U.S. secretary of commerce before becoming president. Trump?

Maura Morrison lives in Greenfield.