Countdown Begins: 10 Weeks Until the Anticipated Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) Announcement

If you are one of those who tremble every time you read that there will be changes in Social Security, we want you to control your emotions, because this modification will benefit you and you will even thank us for having anticipated it. Prepare the pen and your calendar to write down, because we have 10 weeks left for one of the news most anticipated by the beneficiaries of this program.

We are talking about the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). This calculation is one of the most anticipated by any Social Security beneficiary and, although there is still no official date from the Social Security Administration (SSA), the long-awaited message is forecast to take place on a day similar to that of last year. If this estimate holds, then the COLA announcement should be on October 12, 2023, a window of 10 weeks from today.

Although SSA has not confirmed the date for how much this year’s COLA will be, which would apply to benefits payable by 2024, We invite you to mark on your calendar the entire week from October 9 to 13.

But this period marked on the calendar is not free. How can it be determined? SSA uses the third-quarter Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) to determine the COLA. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provides the monthly CPI-W figures on October 12, the day when we will most likely know how much the adjustment will be for next year.

If we take into account that the SSA does not need a lot of time to crunch the numbers to calculate and disclose the COLA After the BLS announcement, it’s easy to know that October 12 will be the defining day for recipients. The BLS always announces monthly CPI data at 8:30 am ET.

In contrast, while one can almost accurately predict when SSA will announce the COLA, one cannot accurately say how much the adjustment amount would be.

If we take into account the monthly figure of the CPI-W for the third quarter, the 2024 COLA would be around 2.3%. That’s less than the 3% increase projected a few weeks ago by The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for seniors.

But not everything is said. Although inflation has fallen in recent months, its decline has not been considerable and it persists. What is almost a fact is that the COLA for 2024 will be well below the 8.7% with which benefits were increased for this year.

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