Seniors collecting Social Security receive a raise almost every year to help their checks keep up with the rising cost of living. The government is still a few weeks away from finalizing the numbers to calculate next year's cost-of-living adjustment,

Below are the latest expert predictions for what the 2025 COLA could be as of September 2024. For more, don't miss how to apply for Supplemental Security Income and how to estimate how much in Social Security benefits you could receive .

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The next cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients — which was already projected to be the lowest in years — is continuing to fall even lower, according to the latest figures from the Labor Department.

The COLA has been up and down over the last few years as it was 3.2% in 2023, 8.7% in 2022, 5.9% in 2021 and 1.3% in 2020. The Social Security Administration is expected to announce the official COLA for 2025 in mid-October.

Social Security's annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2025 is projected to be 2.5%, which would be the smallest benefit boost since 2021 as the pace of inflation slows.

Data source: Social Security Administration. You see that they can get quite high or be quite low. The average COLA over the past two decades or so has been about 2.6%.

The inflation data for August gives us a pretty good idea about the likely magnitude of Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2025. This automatic indexing of benefits to keep up with rising prices — always a wonderful feature of our Social Security program — has been particularly valuable in light of the recent bout of inflation.