The Annual Social Security COLA: A Guide

Last updated 1 week ago. Our resources are updated regularly but please keep in mind that links, programs, policies, and contact information do change.

What is the Social Security COLA?

The Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) is an annual increase applied to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits designed to counteract the effects of inflation in the economy. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), legislation enacted in 1973 provides for these automatic adjustments so that benefits can keep pace with rising prices.

The main purpose of COLA is to preserve the purchasing power of benefits. Without such adjustments, the value of a fixed monthly benefit would decrease each year as the cost of everyday goods and services increases. The COLA ensures that beneficiaries can afford roughly the same level of goods and services from one year to the next.

One reader wrote in during an earlier COLA year to explain why COLA is so important to get right:

I am on Social Security Disability, 70 y/o, my wife 70 y/o, SS but not disabled. Our total benefit is $45 K combined, $7K from pensions. My co-pays on meds & hospital & physical therapy is about $12K.
So tell me, WE ARE GETTING 2.4% COLA! We paid 48 years into Social Security. Biden’s economy has cost us about $20K since 2/2022. Nothing has changed.
Michael Cologna

This system of automatic annual adjustments is relatively recent in Social Security’s history. The program began in 1935, initially providing only retirement benefits. For decades, increases in benefit amounts required specific acts of Congress and were granted irregularly. This approach meant that benefit increases could lag significantly behind rising costs.

The economic climate of the early 1970s brought this issue to the forefront. The United States experienced soaring inflation during this period, when the annual inflation rate roughly doubled. In the CPI-U, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ price index for all city households, the rate was 5.5 percent in 1969 and 11.0 percent in 1974. This rapid rise in prices severely diminished the purchasing power of fixed incomes. Legislation signed into law in 1972 authorized automatic annual COLAs tied to increases in the cost of living. This new system took effect in 1975, marking a significant policy shift from irregular legislative increases to a predictable, automatic mechanism linked directly to inflation.

The COLA Calculation

The process for calculating the annual COLA is specifically defined by the Social Security Act. It relies on a particular measure of inflation, a specific timeframe, and a set formula.

The Measurement Tool: CPI-W

The key inflation measure used for the Social Security COLA is the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, commonly known as the CPI-W. This index is calculated and published monthly by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The CPI-W measures the average change over time in the prices paid by urban wage earners and clerical workers for a defined “market basket” of consumer goods and services. This basket includes items like food, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education, and other everyday goods and services. The index is based specifically on the spending patterns of households where more than half of the household income comes from clerical or wage occupations, and at least one earner has been employed for at least 37 weeks during the previous 12 months. This group represents about 30 percent of the total U.S. population.

The Measurement Period: Third Quarter Focus

The COLA calculation doesn’t use the entire year’s inflation data. Instead, it focuses on the third quarter of the calendar year: July, August, and September.

The law requires the SSA to compare the average CPI-W for the third quarter of the current year to the average CPI-W for the third quarter of the last year in which a COLA became effective. For example, the 2.8% COLA effective for December 2025 (payable January 2026) was calculated by comparing the average CPI-W for July, August, and September of 2025 to the average for the same three months in 2024.

Specifically, the average CPI-W for the third quarter of 2024 was 308.729 (this serves as the base average). The average CPI-W for the third quarter of 2025 was calculated as 317.265. The difference between these two averages determines the COLA percentage.

If there is a year where no COLA is granted (because inflation was flat or negative), the base year for the next calculation remains the third quarter average from the last year that did have a COLA. This ensures that any inflation occurring during a zero-COLA year is eventually captured in a subsequent adjustment.

The Formula and Rounding

The formula used by the SSA is straightforward:

Percentage Increase = ((Current Year Q3 Average – Previous Year Q3 Average) / Previous Year Q3 Average) * 100%

Using the numbers for the 2026 COLA:

Percentage Increase = ((317.265 – 308.729) / 308.729) * 100% Percentage Increase = (8.536 / 308.729) * 100% Percentage Increase = 0.027648… * 100% Percentage Increase = 2.7648…%

The Social Security Act then requires this percentage increase to be rounded to the nearest tenth of one percent (0.1%). In this example, 2.7648…% rounds up to 2.8%. This became the official COLA for 2026.

The “No COLA” Condition

If there is no percentage increase in the CPI-W between the measurement periods, or if the calculated increase is so small that it rounds to zero (less than 0.05%), then no COLA is payable for that year. Social Security benefits cannot be reduced even if the CPI-W decreases. In years with no COLA, benefit amounts remain level from the previous year. This occurred most recently for benefits paid in 2010, 2011, and 2016.

The COLA calculation relies on data ending September 30th, is announced in October, but only affects payments starting the following January (or late December for SSI). This lag means that inflation experienced by beneficiaries in the final months of the year isn’t reflected in their benefit checks until the following year’s COLA cycle.

Your Annual COLA Calendar

The COLA process follows a regular annual schedule, tied to the release of inflation data by the BLS.

Measurement Period End: The calculation uses the CPI-W data for July, August, and September. This measurement period concludes on September 30th each year.

Official Announcement: Once the BLS releases the September CPI-W figures (usually in the second week of October), the SSA calculates the final third-quarter average and determines the COLA percentage. The SSA typically announces the official COLA within days of that release, though the release itself can slip — the 2.8 percent COLA for 2026 was announced on October 24, 2025. This announcement can be found on the SSA’s COLA webpage and the latest COLA information page.

Notification to Beneficiaries: After the official announcement, the SSA informs beneficiaries of their specific new benefit amount for the upcoming year:

• Online: Beneficiaries with a personal my Social Security account can view their COLA notice online in the secure Message Center starting in early December. The SSA encourages beneficiaries to create an account at www.ssa.gov/myaccount/ to access this information securely.
• Mail: For those without online accounts or who prefer mail, the SSA sends paper COLA notices throughout December. Because mailings are staggered, the SSA advises waiting until January before contacting them if a notice hasn’t arrived.

Effective Date vs. Payment Date: This distinction is important to understand:

• Social Security Benefits: The COLA increase is technically effective starting with the benefit payable for December. However, Social Security benefits are paid in the month after the month for which they are due. Therefore, the first payment that includes the COLA increase is received in January of the following year.
• SSI Benefits: The COLA increase for SSI recipients is effective for January payments. SSI payments are normally due on the first day of the month. However, if the payment date falls on a weekend or holiday, the payment is made on the prior business day. Consequently, the January SSI payment, which includes the COLA increase, is actually paid at the end of December.

This difference in payment timing means SSI recipients see the increased amount slightly earlier than Social Security beneficiaries.

Who Gets the COLA Increase?

The annual Cost-of-Living Adjustment applies broadly across the main programs administered by the Social Security Administration.

Social Security Beneficiaries: The COLA increase applies to monthly benefits for all categories of Social Security beneficiaries, including:

• Retired workers and their eligible spouses and children
• Individuals receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) due to a qualifying disability, along with their eligible spouses and children
• Survivors of deceased workers who were eligible for Social Security

Nearly 71 million Social Security beneficiaries are expected to receive the 2.8% COLA beginning in January 2026.

Be aware that rising Medicare Part B premiums can reduce, or in some cases completely offset, the increase beneficiaries receive from a Social Security COLA. Because most beneficiaries have their Part B premiums deducted directly from their monthly Social Security payment, any annual premium increase is subtracted before the new, COLA-adjusted benefit is paid out. In years when the COLA is small and the Part B premium rises significantly, the premium increase can absorb much of the COLA-related benefit increase, leaving beneficiaries with little or no net change in their take-home payment. While the “hold harmless” provision prevents most beneficiaries from seeing their actual Social Security payment go down due to higher premiums, it does not guarantee that they will see the full COLA amount reflected in their monthly benefit.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Recipients: Individuals receiving SSI payments also receive the same COLA percentage increase. SSI is a needs-based program providing payments to adults and children with disabilities or blindness who have income and resources below specific financial limits, as well as to people age 65 and older without disabilities who meet the financial qualifications. Nearly 7.5 million SSI recipients will see their payments increase beginning December 31, 2025.

Other Related Programs: Some other federal benefit programs use the Social Security COLA calculation as a basis for their own adjustments. For example, Tier 1 benefits paid under the Railroad Retirement system are adjusted by the same COLA. Similarly, cost-of-living adjustments for federal civilian retirees under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and military retirees often use the same CPI-W measurement period and formula.

For 2026, 75 million Americans will be impacted by the COLA across Social Security and SSI.

COLAs Through the Years

Automatic annual COLAs based on the CPI-W began in 1975, replacing the previous system of ad-hoc increases enacted by Congress. Looking back at the COLAs awarded since then provides context for understanding inflation trends and their impact on benefits over more than five decades.

Social Security Cost-Of-Living Adjustments (COLAs), 1975-2025

^a Note: The COLA effective December 1999 was originally determined as 2.4%, but legislation later made it effectively 2.5%.

Note: From 1975 through 1982, COLAs took effect in June. Since 1983, they have taken effect in December. The data behind them switched one year later than the effective month did. COLAs through 1983 used CPI-W figures from the first quarter of the year. Only COLAs after 1983 have used third-quarter figures. The year shown reflects the year the COLA took effect, which since 1983 has been the December before the year the increase is usually named for: the 2.8% increase first paid in January 2026 appears in the 2025 row.

Historical Trends

Looking at this historical data reveals several distinct periods and trends:

High Inflation Era (Late 1970s – Early 1980s): The early years of automatic COLAs coincided with a period of significant inflation. This resulted in the largest COLAs on record: 9.9% for 1979, a peak of 14.3% for 1980, and 11.2% for 1981.

Periods of Moderation: Following the high inflation of the early 1980s, COLAs generally moderated through the 1990s and 2000s. During these two decades, the annual adjustment typically ranged between 1% and 4%.

Zero COLA Years: There have been three years since 1975 when no COLA was payable: benefits paid in 2010, 2011, and 2016 — the 2009, 2010, and 2015 rows in the table above. This occurred because the average CPI-W during the measurement period did not increase compared to the base period.

Recent Volatility: The early 2020s saw a return to higher inflation, driven by factors related to the global pandemic and economic recovery. This led to significantly larger COLAs: 5.9% for benefits paid in 2022 and 8.7% for benefits paid in 2023 – the highest adjustment since 1981. As inflation has subsequently cooled, the COLAs have moderated again, with 3.2% for benefits paid in 2024, 2.5% for benefits paid in 2025, and 2.8% for those paid from January 2026.

The COLA’s historical pattern also serves as an indirect reflection of broader U.S. economic trends, particularly regarding inflation.

From Percentage to Payment: What COLA Means for Your Budget

The announced COLA percentage translates into a specific dollar increase in monthly benefits for each recipient. This increase is calculated by applying the COLA percentage to the individual’s current benefit amount. While individual benefit amounts vary widely, the SSA provides estimates of the average impact of the COLA.

For the 2.8% COLA effective January 2026, the SSA estimates the following average monthly benefit increases:

• All Retired Workers: Average monthly benefit estimated to increase from $2,015 to $2,071, an increase of $56.
• Aged Widow(er) Alone: Average monthly benefit estimated to increase from $1,867 to $1,919, an increase of $52.
• All Disabled Workers: Average monthly benefit estimated to increase from $1,586 to $1,630, an increase of $44.
• Aged Couple (Both Receiving Benefits): Average combined monthly benefit estimated to increase from $3,120 to $3,208, an increase of $88.
• Disabled Worker, Spouse, and Children: Average combined monthly benefit estimated to increase from $2,857 to $2,937, an increase of $80.

An individual’s actual benefit increase will depend on their specific pre-COLA benefit amount. Beneficiaries receive personalized information about their new benefit amount in their COLA notice.

The Medicare Part B Premium Interaction

For many Social Security beneficiaries, the gross COLA increase doesn’t tell the whole story of how their net payment will change. This is because most people enrolled in both Social Security and Medicare Part B have their monthly Part B premiums automatically deducted from their Social Security benefits.

The amount of the Medicare Part B premium is determined separately by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and is not tied to the COLA calculation. The Part B premium can change each year, typically increasing to cover projected program costs. Information about Medicare premiums and costs is available at the official Medicare website.

Because the Part B premium is deducted from the Social Security benefit, an increase in the premium can offset part, or even all, of the COLA increase. For example, take 2026. The 2.8 percent COLA raised the average retired worker’s monthly benefit by $56. In the same year, the standard Part B premium went up $17.90 a month, from $185.00 to $202.90. That leaves a net increase of $38.10.

In certain situations, a protection known as the “hold harmless” provision may apply. This provision prevents the net Social Security benefit amount for some beneficiaries from being reduced from one year to the next solely because of an increase in their Medicare Part B premium. This protection generally applies to beneficiaries who have their Part B premiums deducted from their Social Security checks, whose premiums are not subject to income-related adjustments, and who receive Social Security benefits in both November and December of a given year.

The hold harmless provision is particularly relevant in years with very small or zero COLAs, as it can prevent a Part B premium increase from causing a beneficiary’s check to decrease. However, it doesn’t apply to everyone, and it doesn’t guarantee the net benefit will increase – only that it won’t decrease due to the premium hike alone.

The COLA Debate: Is the Calculation Fair?

While the automatic COLA provides crucial inflation protection, the specific method used for its calculation has been a subject of ongoing discussion and debate.

The Core Critique: CPI-W vs. Reality for Beneficiaries

The main criticism is that the CPI-W measures inflation based on the spending patterns of urban wage earners and clerical workers, a group whose consumption habits may differ significantly from those of retirees and individuals with disabilities who make up most Social Security and SSI recipients.

Critics argue that older Americans and people with disabilities spend more of their income on health care and housing than the working people the CPI-W measures. BLS data back this up for the older group. Households in the CPI-E group spend roughly twice as large a share of their money on medical care as CPI-W households do. Older Americans also spend relatively more on housing; for people with disabilities the BLS publishes no equivalent index, so that half of the claim is untested. Conversely, the CPI-W gives greater weight to expenses like transportation, apparel, and education, which may constitute a smaller share of spending for many beneficiaries. If the costs rising fastest are those that make up a larger share of beneficiaries’ budgets (like healthcare), the CPI-W might understate the actual inflation rate experienced by these groups.

The Proposed Alternative: CPI-E

In response to this critique, many advocates and policy analysts propose switching the COLA calculation to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E). The BLS publishes it as a research series, which is a test index rather than an official one. Its full name is the R-CPI-E, the Consumer Price Index for Americans 62 years of age and older. It tracks price changes using the spending patterns of older households. A household counts if the person who owns or rents the home, or that person’s spouse, is 62 or older. Proponents argue that using the CPI-E would provide a more accurate reflection of the inflation actually experienced by most Social Security beneficiaries. Historically, the CPI-E has often risen slightly faster than the CPI-W — 3.1 percent a year from December 1982 through December 2011, against 2.9 percent. That gap suggests its use could potentially lead to modestly higher COLAs over the long term.

Why the Bureau of Labor Statistics Calls the CPI-E a Research Index

The statisticians who resist the switch do not deny that older people spend differently. Their objection is that the CPI-E does not actually measure what older people pay. The BLS says other agencies have looked at using the index officially and have not done so, because of its limitations.

Only the spending weights in the CPI-E come from older households. The prices, the cities, the stores and the specific goods are all borrowed from the index for all urban consumers. Erica Groshen, then the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, told the House Ways and Means Committee in April 2013 that older households live in different places, shop at different stores, buy a different mix of goods, and often qualify for different prices. Turning the research series into an official index, she said, would mean researching and fixing each of those gaps.

The weights also rest on a thinner sample. They come from about one-fifth of the urban households in the spending survey that supplies weights for the official indexes. The BLS expects them to carry more sampling error as a result.

One of these gaps runs the other way, against the idea that the research index understates what older people pay. Senior discounts enter the CPI at the rate the whole urban population uses them. The BLS notes that this approach would be expected to understate how often older shoppers use those discounts. On that point the research index may be missing savings that older people actually get.

Charles Blahous, then a public trustee of Social Security, pressed a further objection at the same 2013 hearing. The CPI-E is not a chained index, so it carries the same substitution problem as the CPI-W. It also leans heavily on health care, a sector where much of the cost growth reflects better technology and better care rather than pure price. He pointed to Congressional Budget Office research finding that the CPI-E might overstate health price inflation by more than 1 percent a year.

There is a mismatch of populations as well. The CPI-E covers people aged 62 and older. Many Social Security beneficiaries are younger than that, including most disabled workers and surviving children. And many people over 62 have not claimed benefits at all.

Other Considerations and Proposals

Other alternative inflation measures have also been discussed. One example is the Chained CPI-U (C-CPI-U). Chained indexes account for consumer substitution – the tendency for people to shift their purchases toward relatively cheaper goods when prices change. Because they reflect this substitution effect, chained CPI measures usually show inflation running lower than standard indexes do. From 2001 to 2023, the chained index averaged about 0.2 percentage points a year less than the CPI-U. In some years, though, the chained index still rises faster than the CPI-U. Proposals to switch the COLA calculation to a chained CPI have been considered as a way to slow the growth of benefits and improve the long-term financial outlook of Social Security.

The Measurement Case for a Chained Index

Supporters of the chained index rarely lead with the savings. They lead with the claim that the current index is simply wrong.

The BLS builds the CPI-W in two stages. At the second stage it uses a formula that assumes people never shift spending from one category to another. A shopper facing dearer beef is assumed to buy the same beef, not more chicken. For that reason the BLS says the CPI was traditionally treated as an upper bound on a cost-of-living index.

The Congressional Research Service reports that the BLS has identified two reasons the CPI-W runs high. One is the missing substitution. The other is a small-sample bias, because the BLS can price only a sample of the millions of prices in the economy, and that sampling pushes the measured rate up. The chained index accounts fully for substitution and effectively removes the small-sample bias.

Commissioner Groshen gave the committee a worked example. A shopper spends $80 a week on gasoline and the price rises 10 percent. The CPI-W scores her loss at $8 a week. If she drives a little less and rides the bus sometimes, the cost of holding her standard of living steady has risen by less than $8.

On this reading the current COLA does not merely protect purchasing power. It overshoots it slightly every year, and working taxpayers fund the overshoot. Supporters add that the federal government already accepts the argument elsewhere: the chained index has set federal tax brackets since 2017. Blahous argued that fairness runs the same way. If the measure is better, it should apply to every indexed program and to the tax code, with Social Security neither singled out nor exempted.

The idea has a bipartisan pedigree. It was recommended by the 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, and by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, chaired by former Senator Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin. The President’s budget for fiscal year 2014 proposed it for Social Security and for the tax code.

The Reply: Substitution Is Not Always a Choice

The answer from the other side is that the chained index measures a freedom many beneficiaries do not have.

Switching to a cheaper item only softens the blow if there was a real alternative. The Congressional Research Service sets out the argument. Low-income older households spend most of their money on housing, food, health care and utilities, and those are not good substitutes for one another. A household already buying very little electricity cannot buy much less when the rate goes up. On that view the chained index would understate the inflation those households face, and CRS notes there is little research settling the question either way.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare puts the point in household terms. Money forced onto fuel comes out of food, and few people can swap a prescription or a scheduled procedure for a cheaper one.

The second half of the reply is arithmetic. A smaller adjustment does not stay small, because each year’s COLA is applied to the benefit the previous one produced. Using SSA’s actuarial estimate that a chained index would trim about 0.3 percentage point a year from the COLA, the Congressional Research Service projected that a retiree’s monthly benefit would be 0.9 percent lower at age 65, 3.7 percent lower at 75, and 6.5 percent lower at 85.

That is also where the reduction falls on the people with the least else to draw on. In 2012, 54 percent of beneficiary households aged 80 and older took at least 80 percent of their income from Social Security, against 29 percent of households aged 65 to 69. The poverty rate among beneficiaries rose from 5.7 percent at ages 65 to 69 to 9.2 percent at 80 and older.

There is a practical objection as well. The chained index is not final when a COLA would have to be announced. The first published figure is revised three times, and the final value arrives 10 to 12 months later. A COLA set in October would rest on a number that later changes.

Current Law and Policy Choice

As those discussions continue, the SSA still uses the CPI-W to work out COLAs. The Social Security Act defines the Consumer Price Index used for COLAs as the CPI-W published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which was the only such index that existed when the automatic increases became law. The Bureau has built other price indexes since then, but any change to a different index would require new legislation passed by Congress. The agency says it continues to use the CPI-W because the statute names it.

The choice of which inflation index to use represents a significant policy decision with inherent trade-offs. Switching to an index like the CPI-E might match beneficiaries’ real costs better and keep benefits adequate. It would also cost the program more over time. SSA’s actuaries estimate that the switch would add about 0.15 percentage point to the yearly COLA and worsen the program’s 75-year funding balance by 0.33 percent of payroll. Payroll here means the wages that Social Security taxes. Conversely, using a chained CPI could cut long-term program costs. SSA’s actuaries put the effect at about 0.3 percentage point a year off the COLA, which would close roughly 15 percent of the program’s 75-year shortfall. That would keep the program solvent longer but might result in benefits that lag further behind the experienced inflation of some beneficiaries.

The Objection to the CPI-E That Is Not About Measurement

Some opponents grant every statistical point about the spending patterns of older households described above and still object to the CPI-E on two grounds that have nothing to do with price indexes.

The first is about design. The Social Security Act applies one adjustment to everyone. The same percentage goes to a 30-year-old disabled worker, to a child drawing survivor benefits, and to a 90-year-old retiree. Blahous argued that this shows the COLA was written to track general inflation, not the inflation of one age group. Setting a child’s benefit with an index built from the spending of people over 62 would be inappropriate, he said. Running different indexes for different groups would be worse, because a person’s COLA would change as they moved from disability benefits to retirement benefits.

The second is about money, and it is an argument the actuarial figure alone does not make. A CPI-E COLA raises benefits permanently and compounds every year. Proposed on its own, it arrives with no new revenue beside it. In their 2026 report the Social Security trustees projected the combined trust funds would run out in the third quarter of 2034, after which tax revenue would cover about 83 percent of scheduled benefits. They put the long-range gap at 4.42 percent of taxable payroll, up from 3.82 percent a year earlier. Against a gap that size, adding 0.33 percent of payroll is a real commitment. Blahous’s version of the objection is blunt: scheduling larger benefits while the program heads for insolvency is a promise nobody has yet voted to pay for.

Who Is Actually Pushing Each Change

The CPI-E side has bills, sponsors, and a direct answer to the research-index objection.

The Social Security 2100 Act, H.R. 9519, was introduced by Representative John Larson of Connecticut on June 29, 2026. Its section 102 would pay whichever of the CPI-W or a CPI-E produces the higher increase. It would also direct the BLS to prepare and publish an official Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers, falling back on the existing research series only until that index exists. The bill carries its own revenue title, which would apply the payroll tax to earnings above the current wage cap and to net investment income. A Senate companion, S. 5042, was introduced by Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on July 21, 2026, with Senators Elissa Slotkin, Ben Ray Luján, Sheldon Whitehouse and Tammy Duckworth.

A narrower bill makes the index change by itself. The Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act, S. 3059, was introduced by Senator Blumenthal on October 27, 2025, with nine cosponsors including Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Representative John Garamendi of California has carried the same idea for years as the Fair COLA for Seniors Act, most recently as H.R. 716 in February 2023.

The case for slowing the COLA is carried mainly by budget organizations and past commissions rather than by a bill of its own. In October 2025 the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget proposed a different route. It would cap the dollar amount of the COLA at the level a relatively high earner receives and leave smaller benefits fully indexed. It estimated that a cap set at the 75th percentile would save $115 billion over ten years and close about a tenth of the 75-year gap, or about a quarter of it combined with the chained CPI.

Congress is also arguing about who should decide. The PROMISE Act, S. 4979, was introduced on July 14, 2026 by Senators Dick Durbin, Bill Cassidy, Tim Kaine, Thom Tillis, Angus King, John Cornyn and others. It would have the Social Security Advisory Board draft a solvency bill and send it to Congress on a fast track. AARP opposes it, arguing that it hands the drafting to an unelected board and limits amendments on the floor.

Find Official COLA Information

When seeking information about the Social Security COLA, rely on official government sources to ensure accuracy and timeliness.

Social Security Administration (SSA):

• Main COLA Information Page: https://www.ssa.gov/cola/
• Latest COLA Details: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/latestCOLA.html
• Historical COLA Data: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/colaseries.html
• SSA Press Releases: https://www.ssa.gov/news/en/press/releases/
• my Social Security Account: https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/
• SSA Page with CPI-W Data: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/cpiw.html

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS):

• Consumer Price Index (CPI) Home Page: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/
• CPI Latest Numbers: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/latest-numbers.htm
• CPI Data and Databases: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/data.htm
• Guide to Accessing CPI-W Data: https://www.bls.gov/help/one_screen/cw.htm

Using these official resources provides direct access to definitions, calculations, historical data, announcements, and methodologies related to the Social Security COLA. Remember that SSA services are free, and beneficiaries should be wary of scams requesting personal information or fees related to COLA notices.

Our articles make government information more accessible. Please consult a qualified professional for financial, legal, or health advice specific to your circumstances.