Social Security’s 2026 Raise Now Has a Date — Even if Washington Stays Shut

Circle Oct. 24. That’s when the government will finally reveal 2026’s Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, and it’ll happen whether or not the rest of Washington is open for business. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says it will publish September’s Consumer Price Index at 8:30 a.m. ET that Friday so the Social Security Administration can calculate and announce the COLA on time.

This wasn’t the original plan. The September CPI — and the COLA with it — was due out Oct. 15, but the Oct. 1 shutdown pushed everything off the rails. Without the September inflation reading, COLA can’t be computed, because the formula tracks the CPI-W (the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers) across July, August, and September. BLS is making a one-off exception to release this single report; everything else stays paused until the government reopens.

So what kind of raise are retirees staring at? Based on data through August, the latest back-of-the-envelope estimate points to roughly a 2.8% bump — up a hair from 2.7% a month earlier. With the average monthly benefit at $1,864.87 in August, that pencils out to a little more than $52 extra per month starting in January. It’s not a jackpot, but it helps. Headline inflation rose 2.9% in August, while the CPI-W — the one that actually matters for COLA — was up 2.8%.

If this all feels familiar, it should. The only other time the annual COLA reveal slipped was October 2013, also during a shutdown. Back then, September’s CPI was delayed to Oct. 30, and the Social Security Administration announced a 1.5% COLA for 2014 the same day.

A quick reality check on the data flow: BLS is crystal clear that this CPI release is the exception, not the new rule. No other postponed reports — think producer prices, retail sales, industrial production — are being rescheduled until normal operations resume. In fact, when the shutdown hit, all but one of BLS’s 2,055 employees were furloughed; only after Oct. 9 were a small group recalled specifically to finish the CPI.

For the people this actually affects — more than 74.5 million beneficiaries as of August, including retirees, disabled workers, survivors, and SSI recipients — the timing matters for planning, not for payments. Benefits will continue to go out on schedule. The COLA just sets how much larger those checks get in the new year.

Bottom line: expect an official COLA number on Oct. 24, courtesy of a one-time CPI release engineered to meet legal deadlines. It’s a modest raise in a year still wrestling with inflation — and one fewer unknown for seniors trying to budget amid a government that’s anything but predictable right now.

With input from USA Today, AOL, and the Hill.