If you are collecting Social Security benefits, chances are good that you’re eager for any insight into how your benefits will change in 2027. In particular, many seniors are awaiting the announcement of the 2027 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
It will be October before the official COLA announcement comes, but experts are already making predictions, and it would be smart for retirees to pay attention. If the expert predictions pan out, that may not be a good thing for most older Americans.
Here’s what the COLA projections look like right now, along with some details on why this news may be disappointing to retirees.
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This is the latest COLA projection
The Senior Citizens League, a senior advocacy group, has been carefully monitoring the data and has predicted that the 2027 COLA will come in at 3.8%.
This is based on the year-to-date updates to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). CPI-W measures year-over-year changes to the cost of a basket of goods and services that are included in the pricing index.
The most recent CPI-W data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in June. The CPI-W data deals with May’s numbers, which are not part of the official COLA calculation. The actual increase in Social Security benefits will be based specifically on third-quarter CPI-W data, which is why we won’t know the exact adjustment until October, when the September CPI numbers are released.
Still, we know how inflation has trended this year, and the Senior Citizens League has used that data to predict a 3.8% raise, which is 1 percentage point higher than the 2.8% raise retirees collected in 2026.
Here’s what a larger COLA means to your finances
If the prediction pans out and retirees collect a 3.8% increase to their Social Security benefits next year, the most obvious outcome is that their monthly checks will get bigger.
But that’s not necessarily a good thing because it also means that inflation has gotten higher. And Social Security makes up only a part of the income retirees generally collect. Seniors also get money from retirement plans that may be invested conservatively and that will likely lose buying power when inflation is so high.
The Senior Citizens League has also repeatedly warned that the COLA formula isn’t accurately measuring the inflation seniors experience because it undercounts expenses like healthcare costs, which tend to rise faster than the cost of most other goods and services.
So retirees will get more Social Security if the estimate pans out, but the money in their 401(k)s and other retirement accounts may not go as far, and even the Social Security benefits bump may not fully cover their added costs.
This isn’t a great situation for retirees, who should make sure they are planning appropriately by investing their 401(k) or IRA assets wisely and sticking to a reasonable withdrawal rate even if prices are rising.
