2.6 percent more next year from Social Security?

2.6 percent more next year from Social Security?

The increase in Social Security payments next year will probably be smaller than the one beneficiaries received for 2024, according to forecasters.

The Senior Citizens League, which annually predicts the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for the following year, said in July 2025 will see a 2.6 percent increase.

The COLA for 2024 was 3.2 percent. That followed an 8.7 percent boost in 2023.

The 2025 COLA prediction announced last month was slightly better than the 2.5 percent that was being forecast as of June, said Alex Moore, Senior Citizens League’s Social Security and Medicare statistician and managing partner at Blacksmith Professional Services.

The rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) used to calculate the Social Security COLA, fell to 3 percent for June. Although easing inflation should relieve older consumers, the rapidly increasing price of groceries the 2020s have seen thus far mean financial relief is still far away, Moore said.

From 2020 to 2023, the cost of the average grocery item with direct prices tracked by the CPI has risen by 24 percent. While eggs captured many headlines with a rise of 86 percent, many other key items, such as coffee (39 percent), sugar (45 percent), and bread and ham (both 35 percent) saw their cost increase by more than a third, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Rising grocery prices is creating food insecurity for many retirees. Feeding America estimated that 5.5 million Americans 60 and older experienced food insecurity in 2021, in the most recent study available on the subject, and that number is likely higher now, Moore said.

The Senior Citizens League is a non-profit advocacy and public-awareness organization on issues involving quality of life for older adults. In its 2024 Senior Survey, which had more than 1,550 respondents across the United States, 34 percent of retirees said they had visited a food pantry or applied for food stamps over the last 12 months. Sixty percent of respondents said food was the fastest-growing expense in their monthly budgets, which was more than double the next hardest-hit expense category–housing.