Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment Forecast to Be 2.8 Percent Next Year, Group Says

The COLA for 2026 was also a 2.8 percent increase and went into effect in January.

Blank U.S. Treasury checks are run through a printer at the Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia on July 18, 2011. William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

A prominent seniors group forecast that the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2027’s payments will be a 2.8 percent increase, coming after the federal government released new data on inflation.

In a news release issued Friday, The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan advocacy group for retired Americans, said the 2.8 percent increase in Social Security payments is 0.3 percentage points higher than last month’s prediction of 2.5 percent.

The COLA for 2026 stands at 2.8 percent and went into effect in January, according to the Social Security Administration (SSA).

The SSA will announce the COLA for next year’s payments in October after it calculates the consumer price index (CPI) for July, August, and September. The adjustment for 2025’s payments was 2.5 percent.

The 2.8 percent forecast would be a modest increase compared to the COVID-19 pandemic years, as higher inflation drove the COLA to 8.7 percent in 2023 and 5.9 percent in 2022, which were the highest increases in roughly four decades.

The Seniors Citizens League’s director, Shannon Benton, said in a statement Friday that the “projected 2027 COLA will surely leave seniors dissatisfied and frustrated” because the group has found that “most older Americans constantly tell us they believe” the CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) that is used to measure inflation by the government and is applied to Social Security adjustments isn’t sufficient.

The group has long said that the CPI-W isn’t a good metric on which to base the Social Security adjustment and has instead advocated for the CPI-E, or the Consumer Price Index for Americans who are aged 62 and older.

Government data released on Friday showed that inflation for January increased at a slower pace than expected. In the 12 months through January of this year, the CPI increased 2.4 percent, a slowdown in the year-over-year inflation rate from 2.7 percent in December 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The inflation report followed on the heels of data showing an acceleration in job growth in January and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.3 percent in January from 4.4 percent in December 2025.

The slowdown in overall inflation was hailed by the White House, with a spokesperson saying that “America’s economy is set to turbocharge even further through long-overdue interest rate cuts from” the Federal Reserve and added that the year-over-year inflation level is the lowest since May 2025.

Last month, the Fed decided to maintain the current interest rate between 3.25 percent and 3.75 percent during its policymaking meeting. The next Federal Open Market Committee meeting is slated for March 17 and 18.

Reuters contributed to this report.