By Jack Phillips
Monthly Social Security payments for tens of millions of retired Americans are set to receive a 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increase throughout 2026, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced on Friday.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, which are sent to disabled people, will see the same 2.8 percent increase throughout 2026, according to the agency.
What It Means
The 2.8 percent COLA means that Social Security retirement benefits will increase by around $56 on average, starting in January of next year.
While next year’s COLA is slightly higher than the 2.5 percent adjustment that was made for Social Security payments made throughout 2025, it’s still lower than the 3.1 percent average over the last 10 years, said the SSA.
The agency will start notifying Social Security recipients about their adjusted payments in early December through the mail, it said. People who have a personal Social Security account can view the notice online before.
The COLA for next year’s payments are based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers for July, August, and September, issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics each month. That agency on Friday released its report finding that the annual CPI, a measure of inflation, rose 3.1 percent.
“Social Security is a promise kept, and the annual cost-of-living adjustment is one way we are working to make sure benefits reflect today’s economic realities and continue to provide a foundation of security,” said Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano in a statement Friday. “The cost-of-living adjustment is a vital part of how Social Security delivers on its mission.”
When Payments Will Be Sent
A payment schedule released by the SSA shows that the first adjusted Social Security payments will be sent out on Jan. 2, 2026, to people who started receiving Social Security before May 1997 or people who are getting both Social Security and SSI payments.
The newly adjusted SSI payments are due to go out starting on Dec. 31, 2025, said the SSA on Friday. Generally, SSI payments go out on the first of each month that does not fall on a weekend, but Jan. 1, or New Year’s Day, is a federal holiday.
For everyone else, the Social Security payments in January 2026 go out on the second, third, and fourth Wednesdays.
Seniors Groups Issue Warnings
Earlier this week, AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, said in a survey that the 2026 COLA will likely fall short for a number of retired Americans.
Around 22 percent of Americans who are over the age of 50 agreed with a survey statement that a COLA of around 3 percent “for Social Security recipients is enough to keep up with rising prices,” while 77 percent said they disagreed with that statement, according to AARP. That sentiment was consistent across political party affiliations, it added.
According to the survey, around 72 percent of older Americans said that a 5 percent COLA or higher would be sufficient to offset rising prices. About 26 percent, it also found, told AARP that an 8 percent COLA would be necessary to keep up with inflation.
Another seniors group, the Senior Citizens League, issued a statement on Friday saying that a previous study found that 73 percent of seniors need Social Security payments for “more than half their income” while around 39 percent rely on the program for the entirety of their income. Another 34 percent of retired Americans “depend on the program for 51 percent to 99 percent of their income,” it said.
“Only 10 percent of seniors are happy with the amount they receive from their monthly Social Security checks, with many citing COLAs that lag inflation as a problem,” the group further said, adding that some 94 percent of respondents said that the 2.5 percent COLA for 2025’s payments was not high enough.
Inflation Rises Slightly
While consumer prices increased 3 percent in September from the previous year, the cost of rent cooled, said the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its report on Friday.
On a monthly basis, price increases slowed: Consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in September, down from 0.4 percent the previous month. Core inflation also cooled to 0.2 percent, from 0.3 percent in August, according to the report.
But gas prices jumped 4.1 percent in September from the previous month, a major driver of inflation in the latest CPI report. Grocery prices rose 0.3 percent, less than in August, and are 2.7 percent higher than a year ago, it found.
The smaller increase will likely come as a bit of relief to Federal Reserve officials, who have signaled that they will cut the central bank’s benchmark interest rate at their meeting next week for the second time this year.
The report on the CPI was issued more than a week late because of the government shutdown, which has now lasted more than three weeks. The Trump administration recalled some Labor Department employees to produce the figures because they are used to set the annual COLA for Social Security beneficiaries.
After the shutdown was initiated on Oct. 1, the Social Security website announced that payments will continue to go out despite the lapse in funding. Social Security, SSI, Medicare, and some other payments are considered mandatory spending, not discretionary.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
