That updated estimate today comes from both independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson and The Senior Citizens League—and is up slightly from the 2.4% both sources forecasted last month.
“This estimate may rise with the four more months of data still to come in before the 2026 COLA will be announced in October,” said Johnson, a longtime forecaster of COLAs.
Slightly higher than the 2.4% forecast just one month ago, Johnson said Trump Administration tariffs are beginning to affect consumer prices and boosting inflation, cut cautioned that the full impacts of tariffs are still an unknown at this point.
Despite the tariffs, the latest Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) released this morning, which is the index used to calculate the annual adjustment to Social Security benefits, is 2.2% higher than one year ago marking the lowest level of inflation since 2020.
“The pull-back in higher prices appears to be reversing,” Johnson said. “This is likely to indicate that consumers, especially those how are retired and living on fixed income are juggling as consumer prices remain stubbornly higher for certain items, notably meats, higher cost of housing and automotive repairs, continue to remain elevated.”
TSCL forecast rises for 4th straight month
The TSCL model’s prediction has now increased by a tenth of a percent for four consecutive months.
“Seniors should be concerned as inflation continues to tick upward,” said TSCL Executive Director Shannon Benton. “TSCL’s research shows that there’s a serious disconnect between the inflation the government reports and the inflation that seniors experience every day. If the government tells us that prices are rising faster, it’s likely that seniors are already feeling the crunch.”
In a press release today, TSCL said a hiring freeze at the Bureau of Labor Statistics has forced the Consumer Price Index program to cut back on the number of businesses where it measures prices. In April, the agency said it had used a less accurate method for estimating prices more than usual, due to a shortage of workers, and it has stopped collecting consumer inflation data in three cities.
Putting less reliable data into the CPI makes it a less reliable measure of inflation, and seniors already have their doubts. According to TSCL’s 2025 Senior Survey, to be released later this week, 80% of seniors thought 2024’s inflation was over 3%, higher than this year’s COLA of 2.5%.
“While streamlining the federal government is a good thing, that shouldn’t involve cutting back on our ability to measure how our economy is changing,” Benton said. “Inaccurate or unreliable data in the CPI dramatically increases the likelihood that seniors receive a COLA that’s lower than actual inflation, which can cost seniors thousands of dollars over the course of their retirement.”
Official COLA to be set in October
If the 2026 Social Security COLA raise was to end up at the currently forecasted 2.5%, the average Social Security beneficiary would see a raise of approximately $48 per month , based on $1,907 being the average monthly benefit in 2025. That would raise the average monthly benefit to nearly $1,955, or $23,460 per year.
It’s important to remember that these COLA forecasts are preliminary and subject to change, as the official COLA is determined by the Social Security Administration (SSA) each October, based on final cumulative third-quarter CPI-W data. If the average CPI-W reading from the third quarter of 2025 is higher than in 2024, inflation has occurred, and beneficiaries will receive a raise. The Social Security Administration is expected to officially announce the 2026 COLA by Oct. 15, 2025.
COLAs can vary widely from year to year. While the average COLA raise since 2010 is approximately 2.4%, there was no COLA raise at all in 2010, 2011 and 2016, and beneficiaries saw a 41-year high raise of 8.7% in 2023 as inflation soared coming out of the pandemic. There was a 3.2% COLA in 2024, and a 2.5% COLA in 2025.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article has been updated as of June 11 to reflect the latest Social Security COLA forecasts. Previous recent coverage from prior months’ updates appears on the following pages.