{"id":80050,"date":"2025-08-13T16:37:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/80050\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T16:37:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T16:37:23","slug":"how-social-security-cola-may-increase-2026-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/80050\/","title":{"rendered":"How Social Security COLA May Increase 2026 Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social Security recipients now have an initial indication of how much their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/social-security\/cola-history\/\" data-overlay-msg=\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,&#039;&#039;,\/content\/dam\/content-fragments\/aarp-org\/en\/article\/social-security\/2025\/early-look-cola-inrease-2026.html,&#039;&#039;,&#039;You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.&#039;);return false;\" title=\"cola history\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cost-of-living adjustment<\/a> (COLA) might be in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>A key gauge for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/money\/personal-finance\/what-to-know-about-inflation\/\" data-overlay-msg=\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,&#039;&#039;,\/content\/dam\/content-fragments\/aarp-org\/en\/article\/social-security\/2025\/early-look-cola-inrease-2026.html,&#039;&#039;,&#039;You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.&#039;);return false;\" title=\"what to know about inflation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">inflation<\/a> \u2014 the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (known as the CPI-W) \u2014 rose by 2.5 percent in July, compared with one year ago, according to Aug. 12 data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).<\/p>\n<p>Annual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/social-security\/faq\/how-is-cola-calculated\/\" data-overlay-msg=\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,&#039;&#039;,\/content\/dam\/content-fragments\/aarp-org\/en\/article\/social-security\/2025\/early-look-cola-inrease-2026.html,&#039;&#039;,&#039;You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.&#039;);return false;\" title=\"how is cola calculated\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">COLAs are based<\/a> on how much the CPI-W changes in the third quarter of the year \u2014 July, August and September \u2014 from the same period the previous year. The final COLA for 2026 will be announced in October.<\/p>\n<p>A CPI-W of 2.5 percent for July suggests that Social Security recipients may see a modest bump in their Social Security payments starting in January 2026.<\/p>\n<p>        Join Our Fight to Protect Social Security\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ve worked hard and paid into Social Security with every paycheck. Here\u2019s what you can do to help keep Social Security strong:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re likely to see a relatively historically normal COLA, maybe in the range of 2.6 to 2.7\u201d percent, says Indivar Dutta-Gupta, a distinguished visiting fellow with the National Academy of Social Insurance.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Lynch, a managing director of applied insights at Hartford Funds, put his estimate a bit lower, saying it would be in the \u201clow to mid\u201d 2 percent and \u201cprobably in line with\u201d the 2025 COLA, which was 2.5 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The final two inflation data points that go into the COLA calculation will be released in the coming months. Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at New York City\u2019s New School for Social Research, predicts inflation will tick up again because of the tariffs. Ghilarducci worries that a moderate COLA \u201cprobably won\u2019t be enough to cover the inflation rates that we\u2019re headed into.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A 2.5 percent COLA would increase the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ssa.gov\/policy\/docs\/quickfacts\/stat_snapshot\/#table2\" target=\"_blank\" data-overlay-msg=\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,&#039;&#039;,\/content\/dam\/content-fragments\/aarp-org\/en\/article\/social-security\/2025\/early-look-cola-inrease-2026.html,&#039;&#039;,&#039;You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.&#039;);return false;\" data-default-element-msg=\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,&#039;&#039;,\/content\/dam\/content-fragments\/aarp-org\/en\/article\/social-security\/2025\/early-look-cola-inrease-2026.html,&#039;&#039;,&#039;You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.&#039;);return false;\" data-displayoverlay=\"displayOverlay\" title=\"2025 benefits\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\">average benefit<\/a> for a retired worker\u00a0\u2014 which as of July\u00a02025 was $2,006\u00a0a month\u00a0\u2014\u00a0by about $50. The average monthly survivor benefit ($1,574\u00a0as of July) would inch up by about $39, while the average Social Security Disability Insurance payment ($1,445\u00a0in July) would go up by $36.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/social-security\/cola-set-for-2025\/\" data-overlay-msg=\"AARP.Everywhere.LeavingModal.drawOverlay(this,&#039;&#039;,\/content\/dam\/content-fragments\/aarp-org\/en\/article\/social-security\/2025\/early-look-cola-inrease-2026.html,&#039;&#039;,&#039;You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.&#039;);return false;\" title=\"cola set for 2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025 COLA<\/a>, which was based on third-quarter inflation data for 2024, boosted benefits by about $49 a month for the average Social Security retiree\u2019s payment. The 2024 COLA pushed payments up by $59 for the average retiree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social Security recipients now have an initial indication of how much their cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) might be in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[56286,28,12586,56288,147,530,733,56289,56290,56287],"class_list":["post-80050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-2026-social-security-cola-increase","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-cost-of-living-comparison","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-social-security","tag-social-security-2026-cola-increase","tag-social-security-cola-2026","tag-social-security-cola-increase-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80050","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=80050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}