2027 Social Security COLA estimate
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Nobody knows the 2027 increase yet, including us — the government has not published the numbers it is computed from. What you can do today is see what any given increase would mean for your own payment. Put your current monthly benefit in below and try a percentage. The estimates people are quoting in the news are loaded as one-tap buttons, with the name of whoever published each one, so you can see whose number you are trying.
What would an increase do to your payment?
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General information only, not financial or benefits advice. The figures above are arithmetic on the percentage you typed, not a forecast of what your 2027 payment will be.
The three months the official figure is waiting on
The increase is not a judgement call, it is a division. Take the average of the price index called CPI-W for July, August and September 2026, divide it by the average for the same three months of 2025, and that percentage is the COLA. So there are exactly three numbers still outstanding, on three known dates:
| Month | Index value | Published or due | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 | — | due August 12, 2026 | BLS schedule |
| August 2026 | — | due September 11, 2026 | BLS schedule |
| September 2026 | — | due October 14, 2026 | BLS schedule |
None of the three are out yet, which is why nobody — us, the news, or the Social Security Administration — can tell you the 2027 figure today. Anyone quoting one is quoting a forecast.
The half of the sum that is already settled
The bottom of the fraction is finished and cannot change: the July–September 2025 CPI-W average is 317.265.
| Month | Index value | Published | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| July 2025 | 316.349 | August 12, 2025 | BLS series |
| August 2025 | 317.306 | September 11, 2025 | BLS series |
| September 2025 | 318.139 | October 24, 2025 | BLS series |
What other people are estimating, and when they said it
These are not our figures. Each one belongs to the organisation named, on the date named, and they move every month as new price data lands — which is exactly why the date matters as much as the number.
| Who | Estimate | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) | 3.8% | June 10, 2026 | COLA prediction remains high at 3.8% as Social Security falls behind cost of living |
| TSCL's monthly model. The date shown is the publication date in the cited article's own structured data; the article text carries no visible date. Retrieved 2026-08-11. | |||
| Mary Johnson (independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst) | 3.7% | July 14, 2026 | Social Security COLA in 2027: Cooling inflation lowers estimate |
| Revised down a full point from the 4.7% she published in June 2026 after the June CPI report. Anyone still quoting 4.7% is quoting the June figure. | |||
If you see a figure quoted without a date beside it, treat it as stale until proven otherwise. One of the estimates above moved by a full percentage point in a single month.
How the COLA is actually calculated
- The index is CPI-W, not the headline inflation number you hear on the news. CPI-W tracks prices for urban wage earners and clerical workers, a different basket from the CPI-U figure usually reported.
- The comparison is quarter to quarter: the July–September average of this year against the July–September average of the last year a COLA was set. Not December to December, not a twelve-month average.
- It is rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent. A raw 3.84% becomes 3.8%; 3.86% becomes 3.9%.
- It can never be negative. If prices fall, the COLA is 0.0% and benefits stay where they are. Benefits are not cut.
- Each person's new monthly amount is rounded down to the whole dollar, which is why the calculator above will not show you an exact percentage of your benefit.
- Announced mid-October, paid from January. The announcement normally comes the same morning the September price data is published.
The catch nobody puts in the headline: Medicare Part B
If your Medicare Part B premium comes out of your Social Security payment — for most people it does — then the amount that actually reaches your bank account goes up by less than the COLA suggests, because the Part B premium for 2027 rises too. That premium is set separately, by a different agency, and is normally announced in November, a month after the COLA. So in October you will know your increase and not yet know how much of it you keep. We are not going to compute that for you with a premium nobody has published; when the figure exists it is a straight subtraction from the monthly increase shown above.
Why the estimates disagree with each other
None of the outside forecasters have more data than anyone else — the published price index is the same for everybody. What differs is the assumption each one makes about the months that are not out yet. Some carry recent monthly changes forward, some model them. That assumption is the entire difference between one estimate and another, and it is why they all converge as the real months land, and why the spread between them is a better guide to uncertainty than any single figure.
We publish no estimate of our own here for the same reason: with none of the three required months published, our number would be nothing but our assumption, dressed as arithmetic.
Related
- Projected 2027 federal tax brackets — the tax side of the same October news cycle, running on a different index and a different window.
- Official 2026 federal tax brackets — the figures that are settled.
- Social Security wage base max-out date — when you stop paying Social Security tax for the year.
- Inflation calculator — what a past amount is worth today.
General information only, not financial, benefits or tax advice. Figures marked ESTIMATE are not from the Social Security Administration. Check ssa.gov or your own benefit letter for anything that matters.