If Social Security is a big part of your monthly income, or your parents’, mark July 15 on the calendar. That is when the number that starts setting your 2027 raise walks out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Independent analyst Mary Johnson is now estimating a 4.7% cost-of-living adjustment for 2027. The Senior Citizens League has it lower at 3.8%. Either way, the raise is likely to land well above 2026’s 2.8%. That’s real money.
How the number actually gets set
Here’s what they don’t tell you when the headline says “COLA estimate.” The official 2027 COLA is not a guess. It is a formula, and the formula pulls from three specific months.
Every year, Social Security averages the CPI-W, which is the inflation index for urban wage earners, across July, August, and September. It compares that three-month average to the same three months from the year before. Whatever the change is, that is your raise.
That means the July CPI-W report, scheduled for release the morning of July 15, is the first of three data points that lock in the 2027 number. August drops in mid-August, September in mid-October. The official announcement follows within days of that final print.
Twelve-month CPI-W has been running near 4.4% in the latest available reading. If summer inflation cools even a little, you land closer to Johnson’s 4.7%. If it holds or picks up, the number stretches higher. If prices fall back to 3%, you get something closer to TSCL’s 3.8%.
What the raise is actually worth
On the current average retired-worker benefit of $2,071 a month, a 4.7% COLA is another $97 a month. A 3.8% COLA is $79. Compared to 2026’s raise of $56, either is a real bump.
Nearly 71 million people get some form of Social Security. Most of them are on tight budgets built around the check that shows up on the second, third, or fourth Wednesday of the month, depending on birthday. A one-point swing in the COLA is not small when you have already stretched the current one.
Here’s the catch. Medicare Part B premiums come out of the same check, and the 2027 Part B premium gets announced around the same time as the COLA. In a couple of recent years, the premium hike ate a chunk of the raise. Do not spend the whole COLA in your head before you see the Part B number.
Do this now
Two moves for anyone on Social Security, or budgeting with a parent who is.
First: read the July 15 CPI report the day it drops. You do not need to parse the whole thing. Search for the CPI-W twelve-month change. If it is running near 4%, plan for a raise of roughly 4% to 4.5%. If it slips under 3.5%, dial back your expectations.
Second: start the 2027 budget draft in October, not January. The SSA will post the exact benefit numbers within days of the October announcement. If you wait until the check shows up in January to rework your household budget, you have already lost three months of planning.
If you are close to filing age and still deciding when to claim, our retirement calculator can show what the delay-vs-claim math looks like at different benefit levels. The basics of when to file, and how the trade works, live on our Social Security basics guide.
For everyone else: file this away. The 2027 COLA will not touch your paycheck. It will hit millions of household budgets in your extended family, and it lands the same week the 2027 Medicare Part B premium is announced. Watch both numbers.
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