Methodology

Source hierarchy: U.S. government primary sources outrank third-party reporting for official facts. BLS supplies CPI-W series CWUR0000SA0 (not seasonally adjusted). SSA is primary for official COLA, the formula, history, and SSI federal amounts. CMS and the Medicare Trustees are primary for Part B.

Quick estimates multiply a current gross monthly benefit by a selected COLA percent using decimal-safe math and round to the cent for display. That is not SSA’s exact check math. SSA applies COLA to the PIA and uses truncation and other adjustments.

The CPI-W COLA uses third-quarter averages and SSA-style rounding to one decimal. One published month is progress only; two months produce an incomplete partial average; three months produce a calculated but unconfirmed rate until SSA publishes the official COLA.

Named forecasts are included only with an organization, rate, publication date, and source URL. COLA Benefit does not publish a house forecast. A 3.5% displayed scenario, when shown while official COLA is pending, is an illustrative midpoint of the published 3.4%–3.6% range — not a proprietary forecast and not “consensus.”

Federal SSI maxima use the SSA unrounded-annual method (increase, round down to a multiple of $12, divide by 12). That path is separate from a current-payment quick estimate. 2027 SSI outputs using a projected COLA are projections.

Medicare policy: 2026 standard Part B is official. The 2027 $209.50 figure is a 2026 Medicare Trustees Report projection, not a final CMS premium. The net-impact calculator does not determine IRMAA or hold-harmless.

History presentation: recent public tables use benefit-payment year for usability. SSA series year is preserved as the source reference. 1975–1982 COLAs were generally payable for June; modern COLAs are effective with December benefits, normally seen in January payments. We do not apply series-year + 1 to every historical row.

Freshness: fetched BLS values are stored as pending review and are never auto-published. Last published values remain if a source fetch fails. Material public changes appear in the update log. Time-sensitive figures should be reverified before each public launch.

Corrections: if a published figure is wrong, we correct the record and add a public update-log entry. See the corrections policy.