Locator: 50975COLA.
Updates
From June 12, 2026, from CNBC (same numbers but different story), link here: 3.8% for 4.7% COLA for social security recipients.
Original Post
From June 10, 2026:
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Social Security
Maybe it might be time to end COLAs for social security.
But until we do ...
I talked about his offline with a reader some weeks ago ... this is a bigger deal than folks might realize. This is going to affect military raises and pensions also.
- The largest Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in the last 30 years was 8.7%, which took effect in January 2023. This historic raise was driven by the severe, pandemic-era inflation that peaked in mid-2022.
- The top three largest COLAs over the last three decades reflect recent surges in inflation compared to the historically lower adjustments of the early 2000s and 2010s:
- 2023: 8.7%
- 2022: 5.9%
- 2009: 5.8% (Note: This 2009 increase was calculated just before multiple years of 0% adjustments occurred)
The best the active duty military ever did in the past 30 years was 5.2% in 2024. The second best was 2023, 4.6%.
But look at this: larger percentage raises occurred in the early 1980s (peaking at 14.3% in 1982) at which time I was a senior officer on active duty.
In many respects, many social security recipients need the COLAs the least of all socio-economic groups.
