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- Social Security beneficiaries can expect an 8.7% boost to benefits in 2023, the Social Security Administration announced.
- The increase tops the 5.9% cost-of-living adjustment for 2022, which at the time was the highest in four decades.
Amid record high inflation, Social Security beneficiaries will get an 8.7% increase to their benefits in 2023, the highest increase in 40 years.
The Social Security Administration announced the change Thursday. It will result in a benefit increase of more than $140 per month on average starting in January.
The average Social Security retiree benefit will increase $146 per month, to $1,827 in 2023, from $1,681 in 2022.
The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group, had estimated last month that the COLA could be 8.7% next year.
The confirmed 8.7% bump to benefits tops the 5.9% increase beneficiaries saw in 2022, which at the time was the highest in four decades.
The last time the cost-of-living adjustment was higher was in 1981, when the increase was 11.2%.
“This is a really exceptionally good news day for older Americans, because their COLA is going up, their [Medicare] premiums are going to go down, and that means a lot more money in everyone’s pocket every month,” said Cristina Martin Firvida, vice president of government affairs at AARP.
Next year’s record increase comes as beneficiaries have struggled with increasing prices this year.
“The COLAs really are about people treading water; they’re not increases in benefits,” said Dan Adcock, director of government relations and policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
“They’re more trying to provide inflation protection so that people can maintain their standard of living,” Adcock said.
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