{"id":42758,"date":"2025-09-25T14:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/42758\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T14:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:51:07","slug":"changes-are-coming-to-social-security-benefits-heres-what-to-expect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/42758\/","title":{"rendered":"Changes are coming to Social Security benefits: Here\u2019s what to expect"},"content":{"rendered":"

In just a few weeks, nearly 73 million people receiving Social Security<\/a> benefits will learn of a change coming to their payments. <\/p>\n

Every year, the Social Security Administration assesses a Cost Of Living Adjustment<\/a> which is announced in October and then put into effect the following January. <\/p>\n

According to the Social Security Administration<\/a>, the actual increase is determined by the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W)<\/a> from July to September of the current year.<\/p>\n

Read more: IRS makes major change to how it handles your tax returns: What to know<\/a><\/p>\n

While the official COLA increase<\/a> has not been announced for 2026 yet, bi-partisan group The Senior Citizens League<\/a>, predicts the increase will be about 2.7% , which is slightly up from 2025\u2019s increase of 2.5%. <\/p>\n

The official COLA increase for 2026 won\u2019t be announced until Oct. 15<\/a>, but TSCL prediction is a close indicator of what it might look like as its uses the same calculation method as the SSA. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 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,\u201d TSCL wrote in a release<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe last COLA, implemented in 2025, currently ranks 33rd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: Social Security makes major change: Here\u2019s what it looks like<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the government calculates each year\u2019s 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,\u201d TSCL wrote in a prediction<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201c… 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\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In just a few weeks, nearly 73 million people receiving Social Security benefits will learn of a change…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":["post-42758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}