Social Security Raises 2026 Benefits 2.8% for 75 Million Americans
Updated
Updated · eciks.org · Jun 24
Social Security Raises 2026 Benefits 2.8% for 75 Million Americans
3 articles · Updated · eciks.org · Jun 24
Summary
$56 a month will be added to the average retirement benefit under a 2.8% Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for 2026, with nearly 71 million beneficiaries seeing higher checks in January.
About 7.5 million SSI recipients will get the increase earlier, starting Dec. 31, 2025, and COLA notices will begin going out in early December.
The adjustment is calculated from third-quarter CPI-W inflation data and is meant to preserve beneficiaries' purchasing power under the Social Security Act.
The 2026 increase is slightly above 2025's 2.5% but below the past decade's 3.1% average, after larger swings of 3.2% in 2024, 8.7% in 2023 and 5.9% in 2022.