Each year since 1975, Social Security benefits are adjusted so as to account for any year over year inflation hikes. This is known as the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). The Social Security Administration (SSA) announces the COLA increase annually in October, with the increase scheduled to be implemented at the beginning of the upcoming year.
On October 24th, the SSA announced a COLA of 2.8% for all benefits in 2026. Due to a scheduling quirk, however, one particular group of beneficiaries will actually be receiving their 2026 COLA increase of 2.8% in 2025. Here is what you need to know.
2026 COLA boost — who will get it early?
With the now official 2.8% COLA increase, a retiree earning the average benefit amount will receive an additional $56 in their checks starting in January. This will bring the value of the average benefit check up to around $2,071, according to the SSA.
Social Security benefits are paid to recipients on the second, third, and fourth Wednesday of each month. Each recipient will, of course, only receive one payment per month, and the specific Wednesday on which they will receive payment is determined in relation to their date of birth.
The Supplemental Security Income will also be increasing by 2.8% for 2026. According to the SSA, “the monthly maximum Federal amounts for 2026 are $994 for an eligible individual, $1,491 for an eligible individual with an eligible spouse, and $498 for an essential person.”
SSI benefits are typically paid on the first of the month, provided it is a working day. If the first falls on a weekend or a holiday, the agency will then pay out the SSI benefit on the last working day of the previous month. Since January 1st is a holiday, the SSI benefit for January 2026 will be issued to recipients on December 31st.
”We do this to avoid putting you at a financial disadvantage and make sure that you don’t have to wait beyond the first of the month to get your payment. It does not mean that you are receiving a duplicate payment in the previous month, so you do not need to contact us to report the second payment,” the SSA previously explained in a blog post.
Since the December 31st payment is the SSI benefit intended for the month of January, it will include the 2.8% COLA increase. As such, SSI recipients will technically be receiving their 2026 COLA boost in 2025.
Will the 2026 COLA be enough?
The 2026 COLA boost will bring an additional $56 to retirees on average, however, around a third of that increase will disappear before benefit checks even hit their recipients’ bank accounts. This is because the Medicare Part B premium is projected to faced a staggering 11.6% increase in 2026, as per the Medicare annual report. An 11.6% increase would bring the cost of the premium up from $185 to around $206.50.
Medicare Part B premiums are also deducted automatically from Social Security benefits. As such, once the Part B premium hike and the COLA increase offset each other, the average retiree will only be left with a COLA boost of around $35.
Many advocates such as The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) believe that the reason the COLA falls short year after year is due to the incorrect index being used in the COLA calculation. The COLA is determined using the CPI-W for the third quarter of the year, however, TSCL argues that the CPI-E should be used as it is more reflective of the costs held by seniors.
According to a new analysis from TSCL, “the average senior who retired in 1999 has lost nearly $5,000 in Social Security payments as a result of the government using the wrong price index to calculate Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs).”
“The COLA is currently calculated with the CPI-W, a price index that tracks inflation for people who work and live in cities. Instead, it should be using the CPI-E, which is designed to reflect seniors’ budgets and tends to come in slightly higher than the CPI-W. On average, the CPI-E comes in about 0.1 percentage points higher than the CPI-W,” TSCL further explained.