The latest prediction for next year’s Cost of Living Adjustment for Social Security recipients is out. The results won’t be encouraging for inflation-weary beneficiaries.

The Senior Citizens League predicts the 2027 COLA will be 2.8%, the same as received in 2026. The change would boost the average benefits check for retired workers by $56.60 from $2,024 to $2,081.

COLA is determined by the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, for the third quarter of the year – July, August and September. That figure is compiled and then compared to the CPI-W for the same period the previous year. The year-over-year difference is the new COLA payable in the coming year.

‘Right to worry’ about Social Security

Advocates say the formula leaves retirees behind as prices continue to grow.

“Americans are right to worry about our current COLA projection. The fact is that most senior households already get by on only about 58% as much income as their working-age counterparts, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a middle-class or working-class American who thinks the economy is doing well right now, especially as oil prices rise,” TSCL Executive Director Shannon Benton said in a statement. “Reforming Social Security needs to follow a two-pronged approach, strengthening revenues and benefits at the same time to ensure prosperity for all Americans, of all ages.”

If the COLA forecast holds, the increase would be the same as recipients received this year. In 2025, retirees received a 2.5% boost and in 2024, a 3.2% increase. The largest recent increase was for 2023 at 8.7%.

benefit

While Social Security administrators have warned of potential benefit cuts of around 24% in 2032 unless Congress steps in, a new proposal seeks to address the problem by capping benefits at $50,000 per person or $100,000 per couple

Proposed by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and called the “Six-Figure Limit,” the policy would close about three-fifths of the program’s projected shortfall over the next 75 years, TSCL said.

The plan is likely to face heavy opposition, primarily from seniors. TSCL’s research shows 95% of seniors oppose benefits cuts for current retirees and 66% oppose them for future retirees.

“Rather than taking away benefits from people who have paid into the system their entire working lives, we should focus on strengthening America’s pension system. Seniors tell us over and over that their benefits don’t go as far as they used to, and many younger people worry if the program will have atrophied to a shadow of its former self by the time they reach retirement age, even as taxes on their wages cover today’s benefits,” Benton said.

Instead, TSCL said most seniors prefer to have the government eliminate the cap on Social Security contributions. Currently, Americans do not pay taxes into Social Security on income above $184,500. About 77 percent of seniors support eliminating the limit, according to TSCL research, with majorities among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike. This change, the group said, would extend Social Security’s insolvency through at least 2090 without any benefit cuts.

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