{"id":23388,"date":"2026-08-13T00:29:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T00:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=23388"},"modified":"2026-08-13T00:29:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T00:29:13","slug":"competing-social-security-cola-estimates-released-after-fresh-inflation-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=23388","title":{"rendered":"Competing Social Security COLA estimates released after fresh inflation data"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Cheryl Casone analyzes the July CPI inflation report, which came in line with expectations. She highlighted a drop in energy and gasoline prices as stock futures rally and the Labor Department releases the fresh economic data.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Social Security beneficiaries are still expected to see a larger cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2027 than they did this year, though it has decreased as inflation eased in July.<\/p>\n

By law, the annual Social Security COLA is calculated using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index (CPI) inflation data for the months of July, August and September based on a variant of the dataset known as CPI-W. The COLA boosts beneficiaries’ payments to account for a rise in the cost of living, and the COLA for 2026 amounted to a 2.8% increase.<\/p>\n

The BLS released the July CPI inflation data Wednesday that showed consumer prices were up 3.4% from a year ago. That’s down from a 3.5% annual reading in June.<\/p>\n

Several groups have released estimates for the 2027 COLA based on the July data and estimates for the next two months of data, which have the COLA landing in a range from 3.2% to 3.6%.<\/p>\n

INFLATION COOLED IN JULY BUT REMAINED ELEVATED AS FED WEIGHS RATE HIKES<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released the lowest of those estimates, projecting the COLA will ultimately be at 3.2% when the final data is released this fall. It noted in its analysis that CPI-W was flat in July and is up 3.4% over the last year.<\/p>\n

“High COLAs can provide helpful near-term support to seniors, but also impose significant costs for a Social Security retirement fund that is just six years from insolvency,” CRFB said, adding that automatic benefit cuts of 22% would occur if the fund is depleted.<\/p>\n

CRFB has proposed reforms to COLAs aimed at helping to shore up Social Security’s solvency, including a COLA cap for high-income beneficiaries as well as a flat rate COLA.<\/p>\n

ONE TYPE OF SOCIAL SECURITY ADJUSTMENT COULD CUT THE 75-YEAR SHORTFALL IN HALF<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Man<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n
\n

Social Security’s 2027 COLA is estimated at between 3.2% and 3.6%, with about two months left until the official COLA is finalized.<\/span> (Getty Images\/stock)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The AARP, which advocates for policies it views as beneficial to people over the age of 50, estimates that the 2027 COLA will be 3.5% in its first-ever COLA estimate to be released before the third-quarter inflation reports come out.<\/p>\n

“The sooner that we can give them reliable information as to how much their benefits might [increase next year], the sooner they can start planning,” AARP VP for Financial Security Rich Johnson said.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of uncertainty about how food and, especially, energy prices will play out over the next two months. This is not set in stone.”<\/p>\n

NEW PROPOSAL WOULD CAP SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS AT $100K FOR WEALTHY COUPLES<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\"Woman<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n
\n

A woman walks into a Social Security office in Houston, Texas, July 13, 2022.<\/span> (Mark Felix\/The Washington Post \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) released an estimate that puts the 2027 COLA at 3.6%, which would represent an increase of 0.8 percentage points when compared with the 2026 COLA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The TSCL analysis noted that if the estimated COLA were to take effect today, it would amount to an increase of $69.75 in average benefits, rising to $2,007.28 from $1,937.53.<\/p>\n

TSCL executive director Shannon Benton said in a statement that, “One of the wildcards in this year’s forecast has been inflation’s volatility. It started the year at 2.2%, then surged to 4.4% by May before falling back to 3.5% in June.”<\/p>\n

“That kind of instability can throw off forecasts, but our model is designed to avoid chasing every spike and dip, which has kept our predictions on a relatively steady course,” Benton added.<\/p>\n

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE<\/strong><\/p>\n

The official 2027 COLA will be announced Oct. 14 after the BLS release of September CPI inflation data. It will take effect starting with payments to beneficiaries in January.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cheryl Casone analyzes the July CPI inflation report, which came in line with expectations. She…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}