Social Security COLA 2026 calculator and playbook ship together
New COLA calculator applies SSA's exact truncation rules (dime on the raise, dollar on the payable check), deducts the Medicare Part B change with the hold-harmless cap, and ships with a full 2026 COLA playbook: the CPI-W math, every changed number, the 1975 to 2026 history, and a 2027 watch.
The 2026 COLA is 2.8 percent, but the number most beneficiaries feel is smaller: the Medicare Part B premium rises $17.90 at the same time, so the average retiree’s real raise is about $38.50 a month, not the $56 headline. The new calculator leads with that net figure. It reproduces SSA’s own worked rounding example to the cent ($2,108.50 becomes $2,167.50, never rounded up), suppresses the Medicare offset for SSI, caps the premium increase under the hold-harmless rule so a small check never falls, and prices a custom or CPI-E what-if rate against the official one over 1, 5, and 10 years.
The companion playbook shows the CPI-W arithmetic behind the 2.8 percent with the actual index values, tables every 2026 figure that changed against 2025, charts the full COLA history since 1975, weighs the CPI-E and buying-power debate with advocacy estimates labeled as such, covers the taxation thresholds and the 2025 to 2028 senior deduction, and opens a 2027 COLA watch that will be refreshed when SSA announces in October 2026.
Related
Back to the full changelog, or report an error via our corrections policy.