{"id":300682,"date":"2025-10-13T19:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300682\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T19:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:28:12","slug":"when-is-the-social-security-2026-cola-announcement-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300682\/","title":{"rendered":"When is the Social Security 2026 COLA announcement date?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Social Security checks increasing in 2025<\/p>\n

The Cost of Living Adjustment is rising in 2025, which will change the amount of money people will receive in their Social Security checks.<\/p>\n

Fox – 10 Phoenix<\/p>\n

Seniors, mark your calendars.<\/p>\n

The 2026 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) announcement is scheduled for Oct. 24, whether or not the U.S. government is open<\/a>. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said<\/a> it will publish the September Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Friday, Oct. 24 at 8:30 a.m. ET so the Social Security Administration can calculate and release the COLA information. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

2026 COLA was originally set<\/a> for Oct. 15 with the September CPI report, but the report was delayed after the government shut down on Oct. 1 and hasn\u2019t yet reopened. Without September’s inflation report, annual COLA can’t be calculated. Annual\u00a0COLA\u00a0is based on<\/a>\u00a0average annual increases in the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W) from July through September.<\/p>\n

What will 2026 COLA be?<\/p>\n

The\u00a0latest estimate<\/a>\u00a0up to the August inflation data show a Social Security check rising 2.8%, up from 2.7% the prior month, Johnson said.<\/p>\n

The overall consumer price index\u00a0rose 2.9%<\/a>\u00a0in August, and the index for urban wage earners increased 2.8%.<\/p>\n

A 2.8% COLA would mean just more than a $52 monthly increase in the average Social Security benefit. The average monthly benefit was $1,864.87 in August,\u00a0Social Security Administration data shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Does this mean other data are forthcoming?<\/p>\n

BLS was clear the September CPI report was an exception, only so COLA wouldn\u2019t be delayed.<\/p>\n

“No other releases will be rescheduled or produced until the resumption of regular government services,” BLS said in a statement. “This release allows the Social Security Administration to meet statutory deadlines necessary to ensure the accurate and timely payment of benefits.”<\/p>\n

When the government closed,\u00a0all but one<\/a>\u00a0of the bureau\u2019s 2,055 employees were furloughed.<\/p>\n

Late on Oct. 9, “the Office of Management and Budget instructed the BLS to recall workers involved in assembling the September CPI report,” said JP Morgan chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli. “However, no dates have been set for other data releases that normally would have been released,” including other September\u00a0inflation\u00a0reports, retail sales and industrial production.<\/p>\n

When was the COLA announcement last delayed?<\/p>\n

The only other time the annual COLA announcement was delayed was in October 2013, also during a government shutdown. The government\u00a0closed on Oct. 1<\/a>, 2013 for 16 days,\u00a0also over funding for the Affordable Care Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The September CPI report\u00a0was due on Oct. 16, 2013<\/a>\u00a0but delayed until\u00a0Oct. 30<\/a>, when the\u00a01.5% annual COLA increase for 2014<\/a>\u00a0was also announced.<\/p>\n

How many people receive Social Security benefits?<\/p>\n

In August, more than 74.5 million people received Social Security,\u00a0according to the Social Security Administration<\/a>. These beneficiaries include retired workers, disabled workers, survivors of deceased workers and those receiving Supplemental Security Income.<\/p>\n

Medora Lee is a money, markets and personal finance reporter at USA TODAY. You can reach her at\u00a0mjlee@usatoday.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter<\/a>\u00a0for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Social Security checks increasing in 2025 The Cost of Living Adjustment is rising in 2025, which will change…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":300683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24715,5672,11394,64,13332,4685,453,79,458,337,452,459,454,49089,266,641,606,18302,644,663,451,50,642,1539,450,457,5678,255,449,153,700,5682,4995,6358,6360,98499,3161,711,3566,15777,645,448,447,456,639,662,661,1439,116764,646,766,67,132,68,643,467,4748,22060,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-300682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-adjustment","9":"tag-administration","10":"tag-bureau","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-cost","13":"tag-cost-of-living-adjustment","14":"tag-economics","15":"tag-economy","16":"tag-economy-news","17":"tag-explainer","18":"tag-fiscal","19":"tag-fiscal-policy-news","20":"tag-government","21":"tag-government-shutdown","22":"tag-inflation","23":"tag-know","24":"tag-labor","25":"tag-living","26":"tag-modular","27":"tag-modular-story","28":"tag-negative","29":"tag-news","30":"tag-not","31":"tag-of","32":"tag-overall","33":"tag-overall-negative","34":"tag-pension","35":"tag-personal-finance","36":"tag-point","37":"tag-policy","38":"tag-retirement","39":"tag-retirement-u0026-pension","40":"tag-security","41":"tag-seniors","42":"tag-seniors-u0026-retirement","43":"tag-shutdown","44":"tag-social","45":"tag-social-security","46":"tag-social-security-administration","47":"tag-statistics","48":"tag-story","49":"tag-the","50":"tag-to","51":"tag-to-the-point","52":"tag-ttp","53":"tag-ttp-explainer-not-visual","54":"tag-ttp-what-we-know","55":"tag-u-s","56":"tag-u-s-bureau-of-labor-statistics","57":"tag-u0026","58":"tag-unemployment","59":"tag-united-states","60":"tag-unitedstates","61":"tag-us","62":"tag-visual","63":"tag-we","64":"tag-welfare","65":"tag-welfare-u0026-unemployment","66":"tag-what"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}