Overview
- The Senior Citizens' League's COLA Watch projects a roughly 3.8–3.9% cost-of-living adjustment for 2027, which would raise the average monthly retirement benefit by about $77 if the projection becomes official.
- That projection is not final; the Social Security Administration determines the official COLA each October by comparing the Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI-W average for July through September year-over-year.
- Advocates including AARP and the Senior Citizens' League want the government to replace the CPI-W with the CPI-E because CPI-E weights housing and health costs more heavily and would have produced slightly larger COLAs historically.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics still classifies the CPI-E as an experimental index and it uses a much smaller survey sample than the CPI-W, which officials say raises concerns about statistical reliability.
- Even with a 3.8–3.9% increase, typical Social Security checks would fall several hundred dollars short of estimated average monthly living costs and the larger COLA could push recipients into higher tax brackets or affect means-tested benefits while adding pressure to the program's long-term finances.