By Tami Luhby

(CNN) — Social Security recipients will receive a 2.8% boost in their monthly benefits in 2026, the Social Security Administration announced Friday. However, many seniors say the annual adjustments haven’t been enough to cover their ever-rising expenses.

The increase for 2026 is larger than the 2.5% cost-of-living-adjustment that beneficiaries received for this year, but far smaller than the ones for the few years before that, when inflation was running rampant.

Monthly payments for retired workers will rise by about $56 to an estimated average of $2,071 starting in January, the agency said. Nearly 71 million senior citizens, people with disabilities and others receive Social Security benefits.

(A total of 75 million Americans receive either Social Security or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits from the agency. Some receive both.)

The annual adjustment, known as a COLA, is based on an inflation metric from the third quarter of the year. Inflation has moderated after being at around a four-decade high in 2022, which resulted in an 8.7% adjustment for 2023.

A related metric, the Consumer Price Index, rose 3% in September compared with a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday.

The COLA increase was scheduled to be announced last week but was delayed by the federal government shutdown.

A good chunk of beneficiaries’ COLA for 2026 will likely be erased by an increase in Medicare Part B premiums, which is expected to be released next month. The monthly premium for 2026 is forecast to jump to more than $206, up from $185 this year, according to Medicare’s most recent trustees report. That would be about twice the increase for 2025.

For the average beneficiary, the higher projected Medicare premium would eat away at nearly half the bump in Social Security benefits, Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group, said in a statement. For some, the premium increase would consume their entire COLA.

Not keeping up with expenses

Social Security recipients have long complained that the annual COLA has not kept up with their actual expenses. In fact, the benefits lost 20% of their buying power between 2010 and 2024, according to an analysis last year from The Senior Citizens League. Those who retired in 2010 would need a boost of $370 a month, or $4,443 a year, on average, to regain the lost value.

Over the last decade, the annual increase has been about 3.1%, on average, according to Social Security. Since it is based on the prior year’s inflation rate, it may not reflect the change in prices that beneficiaries are currently experiencing.

Also, AARP has advocated for the COLA formula to better represent senior citizens’ costs, particularly since they typically have higher health care expenses.

“The CPI for working Americans doesn’t quite capture what the spending patterns are for older Americans,” Joel Eskovitz, senior director of Social Security at AARP’s Public Policy Institute, told CNN. “It’s close, but there are just different things that working Americans spend on than retired Americans.”

Looking for help and cutting back

Many retirees depend heavily on Social Security — it’s the primary source of income for 40% of older Americans, according to AARP.

While Sam Ciraulo is appreciative of any bump in benefits, he said it won’t be enough to buy a tank of gas.

A retired adjunct professor who resides in Sacramento, California, Ciraulo lives off roughly $1,400 in monthly Social Security benefits and food stamps. The COLA is expected to increase his payment by about $40, but he thinks about half of it will go to the Medicare Part B premium hike.

Ciraulo, 68, has already had to turn to nonprofits and religious groups for assistance, mainly to pay for his utilities. He has a rare neurological disease that requires him to keep his house cool. However, he’s had a harder time securing aid lately since the organizations are either tapped out, overwhelmed with requests or have shuttered.

“When I see the electricity bill, when I go to pay it every month, I have to think about what I’m going to cut in order to be able to pay that bill or where I’m going to go to get help to pay that bill from nonprofits,” said Ciraulo.

For Joyce Clarke, the annual adjustments don’t “even come close” to the rising costs of her gas, rent, groceries and electricity. Last year’s COLA was eaten up by the rent increase at her senior housing complex.

This year, the retired executive assistant had to stop buying fresh beets after the price rose from 89 cents to $1.19 at her local supermarket. Instead, she stocks up on canned beets during her bimonthly trips to Walmart.

And she hasn’t gone to her favorite Italian restaurant, where she would get pasta, salad and garlic bread for $15, since Christmas.

“It’s a luxury I can’t afford,” said Clarke, 79, who lives in Riverside, California.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.