Social Security’s 2027 raise is already set at 3.6 percent, but the way people learn their own new amount is about to split in two. Anyone with an online account can see the notice first, while everyone else waits for the mail. The deciding date for the online route is close.
The question for people without a my Social Security account is whether it is worth setting one up now. Anyone in that position has to create the account and opt into paperless notices by Nov. 18 to see the raise online instead of waiting for December post.
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Two routes to the same notice
The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment on Oct. 14, 2026. In its press release, the agency said benefits rise 3.6 percent beginning in January 2027, and that the average retirement benefit goes up $75 a month.
Each beneficiary then gets a notice spelling out the new amount. SSA says people with a personal my Social Security account can view that notice online starting in late November, up to three weeks before a paper notice would arrive.
People who have not enrolled in paperless notices will receive the COLA notice by mail in December. SSA’s release does not give a more exact mailing date than that.
The November 18 cutoff
The online route has a hard date attached. According to SSA, people who do not yet have an account must create one and enroll in paperless notices by Nov. 18 to see the notice online.
The deadline applies only to online access. Missing it does not cost anyone any part of the raise, and the paper notice still arrives in December.
As of Oct. 29, 2026, the cutoff is 20 days away. Anyone who already has an account can also pick text or email alerts, which SSA says announce new items in the account’s Message Center, including the COLA notice.
Setting up the account
SSA’s release points people to the my Social Security page to create an account. The page says new users verify their identity through a partner sign-in service, with Login.gov as the default and ID.me as the other option.
Login.gov asks for an email address, a government-issued photo ID and a phone number. ID.me asks for an email address, a government-issued photo ID and a device with a camera.
Because identity checks can take time, people planning to use the online route have little reason to wait until the last week of the window. The same account is also where SSA says the 2027 Medicare premium amount shows up starting in late November, with a mailed notice in December for people who have not opted into online messages.
What the notice will show
SSA describes the new notice as one page, written in plain language, with exact dates and dollar amounts, including deductions. That matters because the 3.6 percent figure is an average across millions of people, and each check changes by a different amount.
The agency’s 2027 COLA fact sheet lists average monthly benefits before and after the raise in January 2027. All retired workers go from $2,095 to $2,170. An aged couple with both spouses receiving benefits goes from $3,238 to $3,355, and all disabled workers go from $1,642 to $1,701.
Those are averages. An individual’s own number depends on earnings history, when benefits started and any deductions, such as a Medicare premium, which is why the personal notice is the figure that counts.
Supplemental Security Income comes earlier
People on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the needs-based program for older and disabled people with little income, do not have to wait for January. SSA says the increased SSI payments for about 7.3 million people begin on Dec. 31, 2026.
The fact sheet puts the federal SSI payment standard for an individual at $1,029 a month in 2027, up from $994 in 2026. For a couple it is $1,544 in 2027, up from $1,491 in 2026.
Some people receive both Social Security and SSI, and for them the two raises arrive on different schedules. The SSI figure is a federal base amount, and some states add a supplement on top of it.
Does a my Social Security account need to exist before Nov. 18 to see the 2027 raise online?
Anyone who skips the Nov. 18 cutoff still gets a paper notice in December, but that leaves the new amount unseen for weeks while the January payment, and for SSI recipients the Dec. 31 payment, draws near. A raise that arrives in a different amount than expected, or a payment that lands late, is much harder to sort out without a date to measure it against.
The Social Security Check Protection Kit is built for that gap. It includes the 2026 payment calendar and a first-24-hours plan for a late or missing payment, and its contents also cover the three SSA forms that stop or pause collection (SSA-561, SSA-632 and SSA-634).
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
