Early projections for Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for 2025 show a decline from this year’s 3.2% and significantly lower than 8.7% from the year before.
The Senior Citizens League’s projections put the 2025 increase at 1.75%. The increase is based on the latest figures from the January Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Warners and Clerical Workers which came in at 2.9%.
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TSCL’s COLA changes month to month based on the most recent CPI data and will likely change significantly before the final determination is made based off figures in the third quarter of the year – July, August and September – when compared to the same period a year before.
“In other words, there are another eight months of data to come in, and a lot could change,” TSCL said in a statement.
TSCL’s estimate is lower than that of the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate which projects the COLA at 2.5%. CBO uses a different methodology than TSCL’s, the group explained, but “clearly, inflation rates are expected to fall from 2023 levels and the COLA for 2025 will also be lower.”
If the 1.75% projection holds, it would be the smallest increase since 2020 when the COLA was 1.3%. It jumped up to 5.9% in 2021 before the large increase to 8.7% in 2022, the biggest COLA since 1981′s 11.2%.
First appeared on www.al.com