Social Security announces cost of living increase for 2027

More than 75 million Americans will get a 3.6% boost to their monthly Social Security benefits next year, due to a cost-of-living adjustment announced Wednesday by the Social Security Administration. 

The 2027 cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, represents the largest annual boost for Social Security recipients in four years. The bigger increase is meant to keep pace with higher inflation this year, driven in part by soaring fuel prices sparked by the war in Iran. 

The Labor Department said Wednesday that the Consumer Price Index, a closely watched inflation gauge, rose at an annual rate of 3.7% in September. 

The annual COLA helps older Americans, people with disabilities and other Social Security beneficiaries stay ahead of rising prices, ensuring their benefits don't lose purchasing power. Yet critics say the measure may fall short for many seniors struggling to cope with rising costs following a 2.8% benefits adjustment in 2026 — a rate that has lagged the CPI for the last seven months.

While the COLA is welcome, "it wouldn't necessarily restore the purchasing power seniors have already lost," Shannon Benton, executive director of the advocacy group Senior Citizens League, told CBS News. "The COLAs are designed to keep pace with inflation, not make up for years of falling behind."

She added, "The bottom line is that seniors aren't getting ahead. They're getting a slightly bigger check to pay bills that have gotten even bigger."

How Social Security calculates the COLA

Each fall, the Social Security Administration announces its inflation adjustment based on a metric known as the "Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers," or CPI-W, which tracks the average change in prices paid by workers for a basket of commonly purchased goods and services. 

The COLA is based on that inflation data from July through September. However, some advocates for senior citizens say that the CPI-W doesn't accurately reflect spending by older Americans, who tend to spend more on healthcare than younger people. Those costs have tended to rise faster than overall inflation. 

As such, some experts support using different measures to make Social Security's annual adjustment. 

"We favor the adoption of the CPI-E (Consumer Price Index for the Elderly), which calculates the impact of inflation on seniors' true living costs," Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, told CBS News.

The advocacy group has endorsed two congressional bills — the Social Security Expansion Act and the Social Security 2100 Act — that would make the switch to the CPI-E.

"Without adopting a more adequate COLA formula, seniors likely will continue to tread water or fall behind rather than 'catch up,'" Richtman said. 

More senior citizens in poverty

Social Security is the largest antipoverty program in the U.S., the Census Bureau said last month. However, the poverty rate among seniors has been inching higher for several years, rising to 15.4% last year from 14.2% in 2022, according to government data. Experts attribute that increase partly to issues such as rising healthcare costs, lagging Social Security benefits and insufficient retirement savings. 

In an AARP survey taken ahead of the COLA announcement, about three-quarters of older Americans said a 3.5% inflation adjustment in their Social Security benefits wouldn't be enough to keep up with rising prices. 

"There's a lot on the line financially right now for older Americans: one in five have no retirement savings, and more people feel financially insecure this year than last," AARP CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan said in a statement on Wednesday. 

At the same time, Social Security's trust fund is projected to become insolvent in six years. Unless lawmakers agree on remedies, all Social Security recipients will see a benefit cut of more than 20% in 2032. 

"Americans cannot afford cuts to the benefits they have earned, whether through changes to their hard-earned payments or the COLA," Minter-Jordan said.