Most retirees depend on Social Security for at least a good portion of their monthly income. That’s why it is so essential for seniors to follow the news on Cost of Living Adjustments or COLAs. COLAs help retirees keep pace with rising costs, which has been especially important in recent years as inflation has surged thanks to lingering issues from the pandemic, including disruptions to the supply chain.
Cost of Living Adjustments don’t happen every year, but they do happen most years, and without them, retirees who count on Social Security would be in a pretty bad financial situation as the value of their benefits would erode over time. They would have much less buying power if prices rose, but benefits did not.
Retirees have enjoyed a long string of large raises in the years following the COVID pandemic, especially in 2023 when benefits rose by 8.7%. But, when will they find out how big of a raise they’re on track for in 2026? Here’s what seniors need to know about the upcoming COLA announcement date
When will Social Security retirees learn what their raise will be next year?
The official announcement of Social Security’s 2026 benefits increase will be made in October. The reason that the announcement is several months away, and is always made in October, is because of the way that COLAs are calculated.
Cost of Living Adjustments are based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). This index tracks changes in prices on a basket of goods and services. It monitors year-over-year increases in the cost of many different items, from food to transportation to housing to entertainment. It is not just any CPI-W numbers that are used to calculate COLAs, though, nor is it annual numbers. The specific COLA formula that the law says should be used to determine Social Security raises takes into account how CPI-W numbers have changed in the third quarter of the year.
The third quarter includes the months of July, August, and September. This means that we need the CPI-W data from all three of those months in order to know how much COLAs will be. Collecting this data takes time, so the Bureau of Labor Statistics typically announces changes to the CPI-W a few weeks after each month ends. In other words, we will not have the September CPI-W data until mid-October.
When this data comes out, it will be possible to take the average change to CPI-W numbers over the three relevant months and determine exactly how big the Social Security COLA is going to be for 2026. The official announcement from Social Security will come around that time.
What do experts believe the COLA will be next year?
While we won’t have definite answers on the 2026 COLA until October, we already do have some key data. We know that the CPI-W numbers for June were recently announced and that the CPI-W numbers showed a 2.6% year-over-year increase while the overall CPI numbers showed a 2.7% increase.
This number, plus the CPI trends that have occurred throughout 2025, have given experts the insight they need to make some predictions for the 2026 COLA. The Senior Citizens League, for example, projects benefits will go up by 2.6% while another expert, an independent analyst named Mary Johnson, believes benefits will rise a little bit more and seniors will see a 2.7% raise. Both would be on par with last year’s benefit bump.
It remains to be seen if these projections are right, but October is just around the corner, and it won’t be long until we have a definite answer.
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