📋 How Social Security COLA May Increase 2026 Benefits (AARP Article)

[Winter2025VA]

FROM THE ARTICLE.

Social Security COLA 2026: How Much Will Payments Increase Next Year?

With a key inflation number of 2.5%, analysts predict a modest bump in benefits

By Deirdre Shesgreen, AARP.

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Published August 12, 2025.

A key gauge for inflation — the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (known as the CPI-W) — rose by 2.5 percent in July, compared with one year ago, according to Aug. 12 data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS
“We’re likely to see a relatively historically normal COLA, maybe in the range of 2.6 to 2.7” percent, says Indivar Dutta-Gupta, a distinguished visiting fellow with the National Academy of Social Insurance.

Mike Lynch, a managing director of applied insights at Hartford Funds, put his estimate a bit lower, saying it would be in the “low to mid” 2 percent and “probably in line with” the 2025 COLA, which was 2.5 percent.

The final two inflation data points that go into the COLA calculation will be released in the coming months. Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at New York City’s New School for Social Research, predicts inflation will tick up again because of the tariffs. Ghilarducci worries that a moderate COLA “probably won’t be enough to cover the inflation rates that we’re headed into.”

USE LINK BELOW TO READ THE ARTICLE.

https://www.aarp.org/social-security/early-look-cola-increase-2026/

[Winter2025VA]

I prefer to WAIT until October when it is "official" = NOT one to "predict" stuff. And I guess I should be grateful when we get one.  🙄