Two federal retirement checks moved by different amounts this year, even though both increases were calculated from the same government inflation report. Annuitants who retired under the Civil Service Retirement System received a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase, while those who retired under the newer Federal Employees Retirement System received 2.0 percent. For a household living on a fixed federal annuity of a few thousand dollars a month, that eight-tenths-of-a-point gap adds up to a meaningfully different raise, and it repeats every year the two systems both get an adjustment.
The 2026 Numbers, Straight From OPM
The Office of Personnel Management spells out the split in plain terms on its own COLA guidance page: for 2026, annuitants who retired under CSRS receive a 2.8 percent increase, and those who retired under FERS receive a 2.0 percent increase. The adjustment became effective December 1, 2025, and showed up in annuity payments starting with the January 2026 check, which is the standard schedule OPM uses every year a COLA is payable.
Most retirees only qualify for this annual bump once they turn 62. Disability retirees, survivor annuitants, and those who retired under special provisions for law enforcement, firefighting, or air traffic control are the main exceptions, and OPM’s COLA guidance notes that anyone who retired within the past year receives a prorated share rather than the full percentage in their first adjustment.
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Why the Same Inflation Report Produces Two Different Raises
The gap is not an error or a one-year fluke. It is built into how FERS COLAs have been calculated since Congress created the system, and OPM’s own retirement handbook lays out the formula in a bracket table: when the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers rises 2 percent or less, FERS matches that figure exactly. When it rises between 2 and 3 percent, FERS is capped at a flat 2.0 percent. Above 3 percent, FERS retirees get the CPI increase minus a full percentage point. CSRS annuitants, by contrast, always receive the full CPI-W increase with no cap and no reduction, which is why the OPM CSRS/FERS Handbook shows the same 2.8 percent CSRS versus 2.0 percent FERS split occurring in 2019 under nearly identical inflation conditions.
The handbook also confirms that FERS COLAs generally do not apply to annuitants under age 62 as of December 1 of the COLA year, with narrow exceptions for disability annuitants, certain reserve technicians, and law enforcement or firefighter retirees. A CSRS annuitant, by comparison, can draw a COLA at any age. Retirees who transferred from CSRS into FERS and kept a CSRS component in their annuity get an extra wrinkle: that portion of their payment is still adjusted under the more generous CSRS rules even in a year when the rest of their FERS annuity gets nothing.
New retirees do not get the full percentage right away, either. OPM’s proration rule pays one-twelfth of the annual COLA for each month a retiree has been on the annuity roll before the December 1 effective date, so someone whose annuity commenced in August would receive roughly a third of the year’s COLA in the following January’s check and the full rate the year after. Survivor annuities generally follow the same proration schedule as the retiree’s own annuity did, and children’s benefits under both systems are adjusted using the CSRS formula regardless of which system the parent retired under.
How the 2.8 Percent Social Security Increase Compares
Social Security’s 2026 adjustment lines up with the CSRS rate rather than the FERS one. The Social Security Administration’s 2026 COLA fact sheet confirms the increase at 2.8 percent, based on the rise in the CPI-W from the third quarter of 2024 through the third quarter of 2025, and applies it to nearly 71 million beneficiaries starting with January 2026 payments. The same fact sheet shows the average retired-worker benefit rising from $2,015 to $2,071 a month under the adjustment, and the maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring at full retirement age climbing to $4,152. The same table shows an aged couple both receiving benefits moving from $3,120 to $3,208 a month, and an aged widow or widower living alone moving from $1,867 to $1,919, giving a sense of how the same 2.8 percent lands differently depending on household size and benefit history.
That means a retired federal employee drawing both a FERS annuity and a Social Security check is living with two different raises this year on the same household budget: a smaller, capped increase on the pension side and the fuller CPI-based increase on the Social Security side. A CSRS retiree drawing Social Security, by contrast, gets the same 2.8 percent rate on both halves of the household’s income.
The Dollar Difference, According to Social Security’s Own Numbers
Social Security’s own announcement puts a rough dollar figure on its side of the comparison. The agency’s October 24, 2025 press release states that the 2.8 percent COLA raises the average retirement benefit by about $56 a month starting in January, spread across a program covering, together with Supplemental Security Income, 75 million Americans. There is no equivalent single “average” figure for federal annuitants, since FERS and CSRS annuities vary widely based on years of service and salary history, but the same 2.8-versus-2.0 percentage gap applies whether a household’s federal pension runs $1,500 a month or $6,000. Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano framed the broader adjustment as central to the program’s design, telling reporters that “the cost-of-living adjustment is a vital part of how Social Security delivers on its mission” of keeping benefits in step with “today’s economic realities.”
The Benefit Programs That Never Come With a COLA Announcement
A cost-of-living adjustment arrives on its own schedule, but much of the rest of the retirement safety net works the opposite way. Medicare Savings Programs, which cover the Part B premium for people under a state income limit, SNAP for households over 60, and senior property-tax relief are all opt-in, and no agency sends a notice when a retiree first becomes eligible. Two households living on nearly identical annuities can end up with very different monthly costs for that reason alone.
The Benefits Checklist is a 63-page guide covering 11 programs, with the 2026 income limits for each one and a 50-state directory of the offices that handle them.
See what each of the 11 programs pays and who administers it in The Benefits Checklist.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
