Social Security's 2025 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Has Narrowed -- Here's How Much the Check

Social Security's upcoming cost of living adjustment Cola may offer a rare instance where history is made but disappointment is the end result for most retirees Social Security is more than a check it represents a necessary source of income that most retired worker beneficiaries couldn't live without over the last 23 years National pollster Gallup has been surveying seniors to determine how Reliant they are on their social security benefit at no point in this greater than two decade stretch of annual polling has the percentage of retirees needing their social security income to make ends meet Fallen below 80% in 2024 88% of retirees noted their social security benefit represents either a major or minor source of income given the key role America's top retirement program plays in laying a financial foundation for America's aging Workforce it should come as no surprise that Social Security's cost of living adjustment Cola reveal which is slated for occt 10 at 8:30 a. ET is the most awaited announcement of the year as we've moved closer to this reveal the 2025 Cola forecast has meaningfully narrowed offering both promise and disappointment to beneficiaries Social Security is often talked about Cola is the mechanism the Social Security Administration SSA uses to adjust benefits on a year-to-year basis to account for changes in the price of goods and services for example if a broad basket of goods and services that are regularly purchased by seniors cumulatively increases in price by 2% 3% or 5% Social Security benefits should ideally Rise by a commensurate amount to ensure that no purchasing power is lost the annual cost of living adjustment aims to keep the program's beneficiaries on par with the inflation I.E Rising prices they're contending with from the first mailed retired worker benefit check in January 1940 through 1974 adjustments to benefits were completely arbitrary and passed along by special sessions of Congress following no cus during the entire of the 1, 1940s 11 rather large adjustments were administered from 1,950 through 1974 starting in 1975 the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers CPI was tasked with tracking inflation for Social Security and effectively became its inflationary tether responsible for determining the annual Cola the CPI has more than a half dozen major spending categories and a laundry list of subcategories all of which have their own respective percentage weight ings it's these waiting that allow the CPI to