Social Security beneficiaries will see a 2.8 percent increase in their retirement benefits in 2026, slightly higher than the 2.5 percent cost-of-living adjustment provided this year, the Social Security Administration announced on Friday. Monthly benefits will increase by roughly $56 beginning in January, the agency said, in an effort to keep pace with inflation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, rose 3 percent over the past 12 months, with a 0.3 percent bump in the month of September. The annual rate remained at 3 percent even after stripping out volatile food and energy prices, the bureau said. The new cost-of-living adjustment will be reflected in Social Security payments for about 71 million beneficiaries in early 2026, while 7.5 million Supplemental Security Income recipients will begin seeing increases at the end of December. The agency also said that the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security tax is set to jump from $176,100 to $184,500. The new cost-of-living adjustment is about average, ranking 29th out of the 51 COLAs announced since the government tied the annual benefit boost to the consumer price index in 1975, according to the Senior Citizens League, an advocacy group. The announcement Friday had initially been scheduled for release last week, but the administration said the schedule was pushed back as a consequence of the ongoing partial government shutdown. The report comes months after the board of trustees of the program’s accounts found its combined trust funds were projected to become insolvent in 2034 — a year earlier than previously estimated. The June report pointed to the enactment of a benefit boost for state and local government retirees in late 2024 as a key factor behind the change in the projected timeline. The law repealed two tax rules that reduced benefits for some receiving pensions, known as the "windfall elimination provision" and "government pension offset." The administration’s chief actuary for the program also found earlier this year that passage of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation package could mean additional strain on the program’s finances, moving up the projected insolvency due to changes in taxation.
