Your new benefit amount will be confirmed by the end of this month. Every month, the Social Security Administration (SSA) is responsible for the distribution of millions of payments for its beneficiaries, the overwhelming majority of which are retirees. The amount you receive in benefits will depend on which SSA fund you are eligible to claim from. However, by the end of this month, no matter which fund you claim benefits from, you will see a new monthly payment amount set.
New benefit amounts are only set through this application
The SSA provides benefits to recipients through three different funds: Retirement, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Disability. Beneficiaries may qualify to receive benefits from more than one of these funds. The Retirement stream represents the majority of beneficiaries, with benefit amounts primarily dependent on how long you have been contributing towards Social Security and when you decided to claim your benefits.
The following are the minimum requirements beneficiaries must meet if they intend to claim Retirement benefits from the SSA:
- You must have paid Social Security taxes for at least 10 years.
- You must be at least 62 years old to claim your benefits.
Once you claim your benefits, you are unable to increase the amount you are paid each month. The longer you wait to claim your benefits, the higher the amount of benefits you can claim from the SSA. Currently, the highest Retirement benefit you can receive from the SSA is $5,108. In order to receive this amount, you must claim your benefits at 70 years old, on top of meeting other eligibility critiera. To date, the average Retirement benefit distributed by the SSA amounts to approximately $2,000.
Recipients will receive new benefit amounts on this date
While you cannot increase your Retirement benefits through your own means once you have claimed them, there is one opportunity Retirement beneficiaries receive every year to see their benefits increase. Each year, the SSA announces the new cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) statistic. This statistic is applied to SSA beneficiaries’ benefits each year (including Disability and SSI) in order to ensure that these monthly benefits retain the same buying power each year to counteract the effects of inflation.
In an official statement from the Social Security Administration, the new COLA for 2026 will be announced on October 24, 2025. It was previously set to be announced on October 15, 2025; however, the date has been pushed back due to the current ongoing government shutdown. Recent projections from the Senior Citizens’ League (TSCL) estimate that the new COLA will be 2.7%.
Beneficiaries continue to struggle despite increases in payments
While the COLA is intended to ensure that beneficiaries are able to stay ahead of inflation, reports indicate that many beneficiaries do not believe that COLA accurately captures the effects of inflation seniors face:
“With the COLA announcement around the corner, seniors across America are holding their breath,” TSCL executive director, Shannon Benton, said. “While a higher COLA would be welcome because their monthly benefits will increase, many will be disappointed. TSCL’s research shows that many seniors believe the COLA does not adequately capture the inflation they experience.”
This concern regarding COLA’s disconnect to retirees’ rising expenses can be attributed to the fact that COLA is based on changes in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) in the third quarter of the year of announcement. However, the CPI-W is more accurate at capturing the spending habits of working individuals and not retirees, who may spend their income on different expenses, such as medical expenses. Additionally, the TSCL reports that the buying power of SSA benefits for retirees has reduced by as much as 20% since 2010.
Disclaimer: This content is informational only and does not supersede or replace the SSA’s or IRS’s own publications and notices. Always verify any specific dates and amounts by following the direct links in our article to SSA.gov or IRS.gov, or by consulting your local SSA field office or tax professional.
