American retirees have been on COLA watch for a long time, with many seniors eager to find out how big their benefits increase will be for 2027.
Social Security cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) are important to seniors because many rely on these changes to their benefits to help them maintain buying power. While COLAs don’t happen every year, they occur in most years in order to help ensure Social Security’s value doesn’t decline as prices increase over time.
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The official COLA announcement will happen on Oct. 14 this year, but senior advocacy groups have already been predicting the COLA based on available data. Let’s take a look at what one group is projecting for the 2027 change to Social Security, as well as how accurate its predictions have been in the past.
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The 2027 COLA prediction
The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) — which describes itself as “one of the nation’s largest non-partisan senior organizations” — is currently predicting that Social Security benefits will increase by 3.5% in 2027.
TSCL made its prediction based on current trends in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). Third-quarter numbers from the CPI-W are what the COLA is based on. The Social Security Administration reviews year-over-year changes in the CPI-W to see how much prices have risen on average for a basket of goods and services. The percentage increase in the third-quarter determines how big the COLA will be each year, or if there will be a COLA at all.
We already have some of this data available, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports CPI numbers on a monthly basis. The September numbers will be released on Oct. 14, which is why the official COLA announcement will not come until then. But we have July and August data, and based on that information and its statistical model, TSCL has reached its 3.5% prediction.
How good was the year-ago TSCL estimate?
For retirees wondering if their benefits are likely to increase by the amount TSCL predicts, it can be helpful to look at how accurate its estimate was a year ago.
In late 2025, TSCL predicted that the 2026 COLA would be 2.7%. The actual COLA ended up being 2.8%, so that TSCL estimate was very close.
Since TSCL has almost all of the information needed to make an accurate guess on how Social Security will change next year due to inflation, I feel confident saying retirees are likely to see a benefits increase that is equal to or very close to 3.5%, unless there are major surprises with the September CPI data.
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