Three months from now, Social Security, Supplemental Security Income and veterans’ disability checks are due to be recalculated, and the percentage that drives all of it does not exist yet. As of October 2, the next cost-of-living adjustment has not been announced, which leaves millions of households unable to say what January will look like.
The number matters most to people whose budgets are built around a single monthly deposit. A one-point difference on a $1,800 benefit, to use a hypothetical, is $18 a month, or $216 a year, and the gap compounds in every later year because each raise builds on the last.
Where the official COLA series stops
The Social Security Administration keeps one running table of every general benefit increase since 1975. The SSA’s COLA series page, read live today, ends at a 2.8 percent row, the increase that applied to 2026 benefits. The rows above it run 2.5 percent for 2024, 3.2 percent for 2023, 8.7 percent for 2022 and 5.9 percent for 2021, a sequence that shows how far the annual figure can swing when inflation does.
No 2026 determination and no 2027 figure appears anywhere on the page. That is the whole news item, and it is a plain one: the series has not been extended, so any percentage quoted for January 2027 in a headline or a social post is an estimate, not an SSA decision.
The swing between rows is the practical lesson. A household that went from the 8.7 percent raise for 2022 to the 2.8 percent in the latest row saw its annual adjustment fall by roughly two-thirds across the series years shown, while rent, premiums and groceries did not follow the same path. Budgeting around a number that has not been published is a guess, and the official series is the only place where the guess turns into a fact.
The series page also shows how the process runs in one direction. SSA fixes a percentage, other agencies adopt it, and only then do the downstream tables change. A reader looking for a VA rate, an SSI amount or a new wage base before that first step is looking for numbers that have no source yet.
The same percentage feeds the VA’s compensation tables
Veterans’ disability compensation does not set its own raise. The VA’s compensation rates page says the department is “required by law to match the percentage of cost-of-living adjustments made to Social Security benefits.” Until SSA publishes a figure, the VA has nothing to match.
The table now on the page is effective December 1, 2025, and the page was last updated December 2, 2025. For a veteran with no dependents, it lists $180.42 a month at a 10 percent rating, $552.47 at 30 percent, $1,132.90 at 50 percent, $1,808.45 at 70 percent and $3,938.58 at 100 percent. No table dated December 1, 2026 has been posted. The VA’s most recent press-room releases, current to September 30, cover suicide-prevention grants, claims processing and a life-insurance premium holiday, but no rate or COLA announcement.
Arithmetic shows why the wait is felt. Suppose, purely as an illustration, that the 2027 adjustment matched the 2.8 percent in the latest row. A veteran at the 100 percent rate would then see about $110 more a month. The real figure could be higher or lower, and nothing official says which.
SSI payments ride the same adjustment
Households on Supplemental Security Income are in the same position. The SSA’s SSI standards page lists the 2026 federal monthly payment at $994 for an eligible individual and $1,491 for an eligible couple, with $498 for an essential person. Those are the amounts in force now, and the page notes that the monthly payment is reduced by subtracting countable income, so any raise reaches a household only to the degree that other income does not offset it.
The 2026 Social Security wage base of $184,500, which was $176,100 in 2025, and the 2026 substantial gainful activity thresholds of $1,690 for non-blind workers and $2,830 for blind workers are also the current numbers, set under the same automatic-adjustment machinery. The SGA figures sit $70 and $130 above their 2025 levels. None of the 2027 versions has been published either, so anyone planning work income against a disability benefit is still budgeting on this year’s limits.
What to watch between now and January
Three official pages decide when the picture clears: the SSA COLA series, the VA compensation rates page and the SSA’s SSI standards. Each carries a firm effective date for the figures it holds today, and each will change only when SSA posts the new percentage. Until the series gains a 2027 row, the accurate statement for a retiree, a disabled worker or a veteran is the narrow one: the 2026 amounts are still the amounts, and the next adjustment is not yet a published number.
Reading the COLA notice once it arrives
When a new percentage is eventually posted, the notice that follows has to be read against the actual deposit date and the amount that lands, and a raise can arrive alongside a withheld overpayment or a late payment. The gap that leaves is a practical one: a household with no calendar and no record of past deposits has little to compare a changed amount against.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit is an 18-page guide that includes the 2026 payment calendar, a first-24-hours plan for a late or missing payment and the three SSA forms that stop or pause collection (SSA-561, SSA-632, SSA-634).
Get The Social Security Check Protection Kit and its 2026 payment calendar →
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the SSA and VA pages cited above.
