Changes are coming to Social Security benefits: Here’s what to expect
In just a few weeks, nearly 73 million people receiving Social Security benefits will learn of a change coming to their payments.
Every year, the Social Security Administration assesses a Cost Of Living Adjustment which is announced in October and then put into effect the following January.
According to the Social Security Administration, the actual increase is determined by the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from July to September of the current year.
While the official COLA increase has not been announced for 2026 yet, bi-partisan group The Senior Citizens League, predicts the increase will be about 2.7% , which is slightly up from 2025’s increase of 2.5%.
The official COLA increase for 2026 won’t be announced until Oct. 15, but TSCL prediction is a close indicator of what it might look like as its uses the same calculation method as the SSA.
“From a historical perspective, the predicted 2026 COLA would rank 29th among the COLAs implemented since 1977, which was the first year that the SSA began calculating COLAs based on the CPI-W,” TSCL wrote in a release.
“The last COLA, implemented in 2025, currently ranks 33rd.”
A 2.7% COLA would pan out to about an extra $54 per month for the average retired worker, increasing monthly from $2,008 to $2,062.
However, TSCL claims a 2.7% increase does not keep up with the inflation senior citizens are facing, pointing out the increase may be eroded by the projected increase in Medicare Part B premium, which may go up 11.5%, according to a trustees report.
“Right now, the government calculates each year’s COLA by taking the average of the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners, or the CPI-W, from July to September of each year,” TSCL wrote in a prediction.
“… The problem is that the CPI-W measures changes in prices for urban wage earners, whose budgets look a lot different than a typical senior’s.”
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