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More than 72.5 million Americans will see a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment to benefit payments in 2025, the Social Security Administration announced on Thursday.
With the change, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $50 per month on average starting in January, according to the agency.
The Social Security Administration first announced the change on Thursday morning via its press office feed on X and confirmed the news to CNBC by phone.
The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for 2025 is the lowest annual increase since 2021, when beneficiaries saw a 1.3% increase to benefits. In recent years, COLAs have been larger in response to record high inflation.
While the cost-of-living adjustment for 2024 was 3.2%, beneficiaries saw the highest increases in four decades in 2023, with an 8.7% increase, and in 2022, with a 5.9% boost to benefits.
Now that the pace of inflation has come down, the cost-of-living adjustments are more average. Social Security’s annual benefit increases have averaged about 2.6% over the past 20 years, according to the Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group.
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