{"id":221329,"date":"2025-10-13T11:01:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221329\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T11:01:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:01:27","slug":"3-changes-to-social-security-that-retirees-should-worry-about-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221329\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Changes to Social Security That Retirees Should Worry About in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Retirees and their families account for 55.78 million of the nearly 70 million Americans who rely on Social Security benefits<\/a> \u2014 and several worrisome changes are on the program\u2019s agenda in 2026.<\/p>\n

Read More: How Far $1.5 Million in Retirement Savings Plus Social Security Goes in Every State<\/a><\/p>\n

Find Out: 7 Ways To Tell If You’re Rich or Middle Class — It’s More Than Your Paycheck<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While retirees shouldn\u2019t panic over the upcoming changes to Social Security next year<\/a>, they should understand them, prepare for them, and adjust their budgets accordingly.<\/p>\n

The Social Security Administration (SSA) won\u2019t release the official cost of living<\/a> adjustment (COLA) for 2026 until October. However, the Senior Citizens League expects retirees to get a disappointing 2.7% raise in the new year. That\u2019s up from 2.5% in 2025, and that\u2019s identical to the 2.7% overall inflation rate from the most recent Consumer Price Index report. That seems fair, at least at a glance, because COLAs were designed to offset inflation, which a 2.7% benefits increase would do \u2014 at least on paper.<\/p>\n

In reality, retirees spend a disproportionate amount of their income on housing and medical care, the inflation rates for which are 3.9% and 4.3%, respectively. That means the projected COLA will leave many retirees getting by with less in their heaviest spending categories.<\/p>\n

Discover Next: 6 Best Side Hustles for Seniors To Offset Social Security Cuts<\/a><\/p>\n

Medicare and Social Security are separate programs, but both are integral to retirement budgeting<\/a> and changes to one impact the other because:<\/p>\n

Your Social Security covered earnings qualify you for both programs.<\/p>\n

Enrollment in Social Security automatically enrolls you in Medicare.<\/p>\n

The SSA processes Medicare applications.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, most beneficiaries have their Medicare premiums<\/a> deducted directly from their Social Security checks \u2014 and many retirees are going to suffer a double-digit percentage increase in that deduction next year.<\/p>\n

According to the 2025 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report, Part B premiums are set to increase to an average of $206.50 per month, up 11.6% from 2025. According to Kiplinger, that alone would effectively reduce the projected COLA from an extra $54.18 per month to a $32.68 increase \u2014 and the publication chronicles several other substantial Medicare cost increases for 2026, as well.<\/p>\n

In November, the full retirement age (FRA)<\/a> increased to 66 years and 10 months for people born in 1959. In 2026, a four-decade transition will be complete when the FRA for those born in 1960 or later increases to 67, where it is scheduled to remain indefinitely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retirees and their families account for 55.78 million of the nearly 70 million Americans who rely on Social…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,3204,11908,147,530,733,1552],"class_list":["post-221329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-cola","tag-inflation-rate","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-social-security","tag-social-security-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}