Seniors collecting Social Security receive a raise almost every year to help their checks keep up with the rising cost of living. The government is still a few weeks away from finalizing the numbers to calculate next year's cost-of-living adjustment,

Below are the latest expert predictions for what the 2025 COLA could be as of September 2024. For more, don't miss how to apply for Supplemental Security Income and how to estimate how much in Social Security benefits you could receive .

The Social Security Administration will officially announce the 2025 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) on Oct. 10, 2024. It might seem like an arbitrary date to you, but it's not. That's when the government releases the September figure for the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).

The next cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients — which was already projected to be the lowest in years — is continuing to fall even lower, according to the latest figures from the Labor Department.

The COLA has been up and down over the last few years as it was 3.2% in 2023, 8.7% in 2022, 5.9% in 2021 and 1.3% in 2020. The Social Security Administration is expected to announce the official COLA for 2025 in mid-October.

Following the July inflation report, the nonpartisan senior advocacy group The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) was forecasting a 2.57% COLA for 2025 (which would round up to 2.6%). Likewise, independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson, who recently retired from TSCL, had estimated a 2.6% COLA for next year.

Social Security recipients received a 3.2% COLA in 2024, a significant decrease from the 8.7% COLA in 2023, which was the largest increase in four decades. For 2025, using current inflation data from the Consumer Price Index, it’s estimated there will be a 2.5% COLA in 2025, according to The Senior Citizens League (TSCL).

The inflation data for August gives us a pretty good idea about the likely magnitude of Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2025. This automatic indexing of benefits to keep up with rising prices — always a wonderful feature of our Social Security program — has been particularly valuable in light of the recent bout of inflation.

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The purpose of COLAs is to help Social Security beneficiaries maintain their buying power in the face of inflation. Over time, living costs tend to rise naturally. Keeping Social Security payments stagnant would likely force those who rely on them into poverty through the years.