Mary Johnson, an independent Social Security analyst, said: "COLA doesn't keep pace with real inflation. The year-over-year ...

Every year, the Social Security Administration compares the third quarter CPI-W data for that year with the third quarter of the previous year. If there is a percentage increase from one year to ...

CPI-W inflation increased 2.5% in the third quarter of 2024, so Social Security benefits received a 3.2% COLA in 2025. The following chart shows how much additional monthly income, on average ...

Like other measures for inflation, the CPI-W is calculated monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each year, the SSA averages the CPI-W value for the third-quarter months of July, August ...

The Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers is the benchmark the SSA uses to determine the COLA, but that wasn’t always the case. How the COLA is calculated has ...