Abaque 00 · The datum sheet

The statutory register

Every other sheet in this series reads its thresholds from here. The point of the register is not the numbers — those go stale — but the drift law attached to each one. Some amounts move every January, some move by a formula written into the statute, and some have not moved since 1984. Confusing the three is the most common way to be confidently wrong about retirement arithmetic.

Entries · F/I/S—
SnapshotTax year 2026
Compiled2026-07-27
Base indexCPI-U, 1984 = 103.9
Sheet00 · Rev A
The three drift laws — every entry carries exactly one

Frozen Never moves

A nominal amount written into statute with no adjustment mechanism at all. It moves only when Congress passes a new law. Inflation therefore erodes it every single year, silently, by design or by neglect.

Social Security $25,000 / $32,000 · 1984
NIIT $200,000 / $250,000 · 2013
Every statutory age: 55, 59½, 62, 65, 70

Indexed Moves every January

Re-set annually by the agency — IRS on chained CPI, SSA on CPI-W, CMS, HHS. Roughly constant in real terms. The value printed here is a snapshot and will be wrong next year.

Bracket edges, standard deduction
402(g), catch-up, 415(c)
IRMAA thresholds, poverty guidelines

Scheduled Moves by formula

Steps according to a rule written into the statute itself — a fixed percent per year, a birth-year ladder, an age window. Predictable decades ahead, and unrelated to inflation.

SALT cap · +1%/yr through 2029
Full retirement age · birth-year ladder
RMD age · 72 → 73 → 75
Fig. 1

What each drift law does to real purchasing power

Forward inflation, 2026 onward 2.5%
History to 2026 is actual CPI-U; beyond that this rate applies.
Read year 2026
Moves the cursor line and the readout below.
Indexed — holds real value Frozen — decays with inflation Scheduled — +1%/yr escalator
All three start at 100 in 1984. The indexed line is flat by construction — that is what indexation means. The frozen line is the same dollar amount every year, so its height is simply the inverse of the price level. A scheduled escalator that runs slower than inflation still decays, just more slowly: a formula is not the same as indexation, and the SALT cap's 1% per year is a good deal less than CPI.
Price level vs 1984——
Frozen — real value left——
$32,000 of 1984 is now——
Scheduled — real value left——
Fig. 2

How much each frozen threshold has already lost

Real value retained Lost to inflation
Read the bar, then read the two columns. The right-hand column is the number that matters: it is what the threshold would be today had Congress indexed it when it was written. The gap between that and the frozen amount is not an accident of arithmetic — it is a tax increase that requires no vote, applied every year, to everyone.
Frozen thresholdSetAmount Real value leftIf it had been indexed
Fig. 3

Provisions with an expiry date

A sunset is orthogonal to a drift law: a provision can be indexed every January and still vanish entirely on a fixed date. Anything whose bar ends before you reach it should not appear in your plan at all — and anything that has already ended is not coming back on its own.
Table 1

The register

Filter by drift law
Filter by confidence
ThresholdValueDrift SetSunsetAuthorityNote
Method — how the erosion figures are computed

Real value retained

A frozen threshold A set in year y buys, in year t, a fraction of what it originally bought equal to the ratio of the price levels:

retained(t) = CPI(y) / CPI(t)

and the amount that would have preserved the original intent is the mirror of that:

equivalent(t) = A × CPI(t) / CPI(y)

Nothing here is a forecast. Up to 2026 these are realised price levels; the only assumption in the sheet is the forward inflation rate on the slider, which affects the projection beyond 2026 and nothing else.

Why the register exists at all

Charts in this series do not hold their own copies of these numbers. They ask the register, and the register answers with the value and its drift law. The index control on any sheet calls a single function that refuses, structurally, to move a frozen amount:

aged(id, years, rate) → if drift ≠ INDEXED, return the value unchanged

This matters because the alternative — remembering which figures are indexed while writing each chart — is exactly the kind of thing that is right four times and wrong the fifth. A design chart that silently inflates the Social Security thresholds would show the torpedo shrinking over time, when in reality it is widening every year.

Confidence flags, and why they are on the face of the sheet

Each entry carries a tolerance. Verified means checked against a primary or near-primary source, or a fixed statutory quantity that cannot drift. Approx means the mechanism is right and the snapshot is good to about a percent — normal for indexed figures. Unverified means believed correct but not confirmed; treat any result derived from one as provisional. Filter the register by confidence to see exactly which is which.

Known gaps in this revision

  • Long-term capital gains bracket tops and the IRA limits are 2026 estimates — flagged Unverified pending the revenue procedure.
  • The super catch-up amount is the statutory formula's output, not a confirmed published figure. The age window 60–63 is certain; the dollar amount is not.
  • Whether the top IRMAA tier thresholds remain frozen beyond 2027 needs checking against current law.
  • State income tax is entirely absent. It is not federal statute, it varies enormously, and several states tax retirement income the federal code exempts.
This is arithmetic, not advice. Every dollar figure here is approximate and re-indexed, and each one is labelled with the law that governs how it drifts. Verify against the current IRS revenue procedure, SSA fact sheet, CMS premium notice and HHS poverty guidelines before relying on any amount. The drift laws are the durable part; the numbers are a snapshot.
Indexed figures are re-set every January and this snapshot will go stale. Get notified when they are re-verified → · All twelve sheets