Social Security COLA increase in 2026 projected to be lowest in years, advocacy group says

(NEXSTAR) – The next cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security recipients is projected to be even lower than 2025’s increase of 2.5%, which was also the lowest COLA increase in years.

The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior advocacy group, released its latest projection this week, estimating that the 2026 adjustment would amount to only a 2.4% increase. The increase was based on April data from the Labor Department concerning inflation and other pricing trends for consumer goods.

“High inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic led to higher-than-average COLAs of 5.9 percent in 2022 and 8.7 percent in 2023. If TSCL’s prediction for 2026 holds, seniors can expect next year’s COLA to be the lowest since the 1.3 percent implemented in 2021,” TSCL wrote in its latest COLA update.

The amount of next year’s COLA increase, however, won’t be officially announced by the Social Security Administration until October. The 2026 increase will also be based on Labor Department data from the upcoming third quarter (July, August and September) of 2025.

The Social Security Administration’s yearly cost-of-living adjustments are designed to help Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients retain their buying power amid rising inflation. These increases, which are issued annually, are determined using the Bureau of Labor’s CPI-W, which itself is a measure of the change in prices for common consumer goods and services.

Even still, TSCL has argued that recent COLA increases have failed to keep up with rising costs for seniors, claiming that the CPI-W does not accurately reflect the spending habits of older adults.

In TSCL’s upcoming survey of nearly 2,000 Social Security beneficiaries, the organization says a fifth of respondents reported spending more than $1,000 on healthcare costs alone. Seniors have also indicated in previous years that their costs for food and housing were higher than their COLA increases accounted for.

“For many of these seniors, a COLA that doesn’t keep pace with inflation means a drop in their living standards,” writes TSCL.

The group, meanwhile, did share support for President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at lowering prescription drug prices, which TSCL executive director Shannon Benton called “a big step” towards ultimately easing costs for seniors.

American taxpayers should not be paying more than the price charged in other countries for the same drugs, especially those made by American companies,” Benton said in a statement included with this week’s COLA projection update. “American taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize the rest of the world’s healthcare while our own seniors are struggling to get by.”

Nearly 7.4 million Americans receive Social Security benefits or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) as of April 2025, according to the Social Security Administration.