COLA Calculator
Apply a cost-of-living adjustment to a benefit, pension or salary
Last updated October 2026
Method: Each adjustment multiplies the current amount by (1 + COLA / 100) and compounds, so every later increase is applied to the already-raised figure. The history mode uses the Social Security cost-of-living adjustments for 2022 (5.9%), 2023 (8.7%), 2024 (3.2%), 2025 (2.5%) and 2026 (2.8%), published by the Social Security Administration. The COLA for 2027 is due in October 2026 and will be added once SSA publishes it.
Included: New monthly and annual amount, the size of each increase, the cumulative percentage, the total received over the period compared with a frozen amount, an optional purchasing-power check, and the optional Social Security rounding rule (adjusted amount truncated to the dime, monthly payment to the dollar).
Not included: Future COLAs, which are unknown and announced each October; Medicare premium deductions; federal or state tax withholding; and plan-specific caps or waiting periods. Results are estimates, not a benefit statement.
Rounding & inflation check (optional)
Shows what the adjusted amount is worth in today's dollars.
📈 Amount after 1 cost-of-living adjustment
💰 What it adds up to
📊 Adjustment by adjustment
| Step | COLA | Increase | New amount | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 2.8% | +$56.00 | $2,056.00 | +2.8% |
Estimate, not a benefit statement or financial advice. Future COLAs are unknown and are set each year by the applicable agency or plan. Social Security COLAs are announced by SSA in October and take effect with December benefits, payable in January. Your actual payment can also change because of Medicare premiums, taxes and withholding.
COLA calculator: everything you need to know
A COLA calculator shows what a cost-of-living adjustment does to a benefit, pension or salary. Multiply the amount by 1 plus the rate: with the 2.8% Social Security COLA for 2026, a $2,000 monthly benefit becomes $2,056 a month, which is $56 more each month and $672 more a year. Repeat the step for each year and the increases compound. The COLA for 2027 is due to be announced in October 2026.
Two neighboring tools answer different questions. The Inflation Calculator tells you what a dollar amount from one year is worth in another, which is about prices, not payments. This page is about the payment rule: it applies a stated adjustment percentage to a stated amount and compounds it year after year. Use the inflation tool to judge whether a COLA kept up, and use this one to work out the actual dollars you will receive.
How a cost-of-living adjustment is calculated
One adjustment is a single multiplication:
New amount = Current amount × (1 + COLA ÷ 100) For several adjustments in a row, each one applies to the amount that already contains the earlier increases. Over n years at the same rate that becomes a compound formula:
Amount after n years = Amount × (1 + COLA ÷ 100)n When the rates differ from year to year, as real Social Security COLAs do, you multiply the factors together instead: (1 + r1) × (1 + r2) × ... × (1 + rn). That is exactly what the calculator above does in history mode, and it is why the cumulative increase is always a little larger than the sum of the individual percentages.
Worked example: five real Social Security COLAs
Take a benefit of $2,000 a month as it stood before the adjustment effective for 2022, and apply the five published increases in order.
| Effective for | COLA | Before | Increase | After |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 5.9% | $2,000.00 | $118.00 | $2,118.00 |
| 2023 | 8.7% | $2,118.00 | $184.27 | $2,302.27 |
| 2024 | 3.2% | $2,302.27 | $73.67 | $2,375.94 |
| 2025 | 2.5% | $2,375.94 | $59.40 | $2,435.34 |
| 2026 | 2.8% | $2,435.34 | $68.19 | $2,503.53 |
The five rates add up to 23.1%, but the benefit actually rose by 25.18%, from $2,000.00 to $2,503.53, a gain of $503.53 a month or about $6,042 a year. The extra 2.08 percentage points is pure compounding: the 8.7% in 2023 was applied to $2,118.00, not to the original $2,000.00, so it produced $184.27 instead of $174.00.
The same five adjustments on a smaller benefit scale in proportion. A $1,500 monthly benefit runs $1,588.50, then $1,726.70, then $1,781.95, then $1,826.50, then $1,877.64. Social Security applies each COLA to the amount truncated to the next lower dime and pays the monthly benefit rounded down to the next lower dollar, so that last figure is paid as $1,877. Switch on the rounding option to reproduce those steps.
Worked example: ten years at a steady 2.5%
Planning ahead means choosing a rate rather than reading one off a table. Suppose you assume a steady 2.5% adjustment on a $2,000 monthly benefit. Year one gives $2,050.00. Year five gives $2,262.82. Year ten gives $2,560.17, which is 28.01% above the starting figure even though ten adjustments of 2.5% only sum to 25%.
The cash difference matters more than the percentage. Over those ten years the benefit pays out about $275,603 in total, against $240,000 if the amount had been frozen at $2,000. The adjustments are worth roughly $35,603 across the decade. Stretch the same assumption to 20 years and the monthly figure reaches $3,277.23, with a cumulative total near $628,399 against $480,000 frozen, a difference of about $148,399.
How to use this calculator
Start by choosing a mode. Your own COLA % is the general tool: enter an amount, a rate and a whole number of adjustments, and the calculator compounds them. It opens with the 2.8% COLA for 2026 applied once. SSA COLA history skips the rate entirely and runs the five published Social Security adjustments for 2022 through 2026 against whatever starting amount you enter.
Then set whether your amount is per month or per year. Benefits and pensions are usually quoted monthly, salaries annually. The calculator converts either way, so the result card always shows both the periodic figure and the new annual total.
The optional panel holds two extras. The inflation field compares your adjusted amount against a price assumption and reports what it is worth in today's dollars, which is the honest test of whether a COLA is keeping up. The rounding switch reproduces the Social Security rule (the adjusted amount is truncated to the dime and the monthly payment to the dollar), which is why your notice can show a figure up to a dollar below the arithmetic result.
New amount after a single adjustment
The table below applies one COLA to a range of monthly amounts. Read across your amount and down to your rate. For an annual salary, use the same percentages: the arithmetic does not care about the period.
| Current amount | 1% | 2% | 2.5% | 3% | 5% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $1,010.00 | $1,020.00 | $1,025.00 | $1,030.00 | $1,050.00 |
| $1,500 | $1,515.00 | $1,530.00 | $1,537.50 | $1,545.00 | $1,575.00 |
| $2,000 | $2,020.00 | $2,040.00 | $2,050.00 | $2,060.00 | $2,100.00 |
| $2,500 | $2,525.00 | $2,550.00 | $2,562.50 | $2,575.00 | $2,625.00 |
| $3,000 | $3,030.00 | $3,060.00 | $3,075.00 | $3,090.00 | $3,150.00 |
| $4,000 | $4,040.00 | $4,080.00 | $4,100.00 | $4,120.00 | $4,200.00 |
Every row is simply the amount times the factor, so a 2.5% adjustment is always exactly 2.5 cents on the dollar. That linearity is why a large benefit gains far more dollars from the same announcement than a small one, a point that comes up in every debate about how COLAs are set.
Compounded growth over time
The second table shows what a $2,000 monthly amount becomes after a number of equal adjustments, together with the cumulative percentage increase. Notice how the percentage always exceeds the simple rate times the number of years.
| Annual COLA | After 5 yr | After 10 yr | After 20 yr | After 30 yr | 30-yr rise |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5% | $2,155 | $2,321 | $2,694 | $3,126 | 56.3% |
| 2.0% | $2,208 | $2,438 | $2,972 | $3,623 | 81.1% |
| 2.5% | $2,263 | $2,560 | $3,277 | $4,195 | 109.8% |
| 3.0% | $2,319 | $2,688 | $3,612 | $4,855 | 142.7% |
| 3.5% | $2,375 | $2,821 | $3,980 | $5,614 | 180.7% |
At 2.5% a year an amount doubles in about 28.1 years; at 3.0% it takes about 23.4 years. Half a percentage point looks trivial on a single notice and is decisive across a retirement.
Social Security COLA history, 2022 to 2026
The Social Security Administration publishes each adjustment once it is determined. The five most recent published figures are shown below with the effect of each on a $2,000 monthly benefit and the running cumulative increase from the pre-2022 amount.
| Effective for | COLA | Benefit after | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 5.9% | $2,118.00 | 5.90% |
| 2023 | 8.7% | $2,302.27 | 15.11% |
| 2024 | 3.2% | $2,375.94 | 18.80% |
| 2025 | 2.5% | $2,435.34 | 21.77% |
| 2026 | 2.8% | $2,503.53 | 25.18% |
Only adjustments that have actually been published are listed. The COLA for 2027 depends on the CPI-W for July through September 2026; the Bureau of Labor Statistics has scheduled the September figure for October 14, 2026, and SSA announces the COLA once it is out. Until then, any 2027 percentage is a projection rather than a fact.
COLAs for federal and military retirees in 2026
Federal retirement plans use the same CPI-W measurement but not always the same percentage. Military retired pay and CSRS annuities received the full 2.8% for 2026, effective December 1, 2025. FERS annuities received 2.0%: under the FERS rule the COLA equals the CPI increase when that increase is 2% or less, is capped at 2% when the increase is between 2% and 3%, and is the increase minus one point above 3%. FERS retirees generally receive COLAs only from age 62, with exceptions for disability, survivor and special-provision annuitants, and the first COLA after retirement is prorated. To project a FERS annuity, enter 2.0% here rather than the Social Security figure.
How the Social Security COLA is set
The adjustment is not a policy choice made each autumn. It follows a formula written into law and applied to a published price index. SSA compares the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, known as CPI-W and produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the third quarter of the current year against the third quarter of the last year in which a COLA was determined. The percentage increase, rounded to the nearest tenth of one percent, becomes the COLA.
Three consequences follow from that design. The adjustment is backward looking, so it reflects prices that have already risen rather than prices you are about to face. It uses one specific index built around the spending of wage earners, which is not the same basket a retiree buys. And it can never be negative: if the index does not rise, there is simply no increase, and benefits stay flat rather than falling, as they did for 2010, 2011 and 2016. SSA announces the figure in October, it applies to benefits for December, and the higher payment arrives in January.
Who this calculator is for
Social Security recipients checking whether the number on the December notice matches the announced percentage, or projecting a benefit across a long retirement. Federal, state and municipal retirees whose plan applies an annual adjustment, often capped, sometimes tied to the same index and sometimes to a fixed rate. Military retirees and survivors whose retired pay carries an annual adjustment. Employees comparing an across-the-board cost-of-living increase against a merit raise, or judging an offer that promises an annual adjustment. Anyone drafting a budget that has to hold for several years, where a payment that grows 2.5% a year and costs that grow 3% a year quietly diverge.
Key terms
- COLA: a cost-of-living adjustment, an increase applied to a payment so it keeps closer to the price level.
- CPI-W: the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, the index Social Security uses to determine its COLA.
- Compounding: applying each new percentage to the already-raised amount, which makes the cumulative rise exceed the sum of the rates.
- Effective date: the month the higher amount begins. For Social Security the COLA applies to benefits for December and is paid in January.
- Real value: the adjusted amount expressed in the purchasing power of a base year, after removing the effect of price increases.
- Cap: a plan rule limiting the annual adjustment to a maximum, common in public pensions, for example 2% or 3% regardless of the index.
- Gross versus net: the COLA raises the gross payment; what lands in your account is after Medicare premiums, withholding and other deductions.
What changes your result
- The rate you assume. The gap between 2% and 3% is small in one year and enormous over thirty, as the growth table shows.
- The number of adjustments. Compounding is slow at first and accelerates, so long projections are far more sensitive to the rate than short ones.
- Plan caps and floors. A pension capped at 2% will not pass that on in a high-inflation year even when the index rises far more.
- Waiting periods. Some plans grant no adjustment in the first year or two of retirement, which permanently shifts the whole schedule down.
- Deductions. A rising Medicare Part B premium can absorb a large share of a small COLA, so the net deposit grows less than the gross benefit.
- Rounding. Social Security truncates the adjusted amount to the dime and the monthly payment to the dollar, which shaves up to about a dollar off the arithmetic figure.
- Taxes. A larger benefit can push more of it into taxable territory, so part of an increase can be offset by tax.
Practical tips
- Plan with a conservative rate. Assuming an 8.7% year repeats is the fastest way to build a budget that fails; recent COLAs were 3.2%, 2.5% and 2.8%.
- Run the same amount twice, once at your assumed COLA and once at a slightly higher inflation figure, and treat the gap as your real risk.
- Check the December notice against the announced percentage. Arithmetic errors are rare, but withholding changes are common and look like errors.
- If you are negotiating pay, ask whether a cost-of-living increase is applied before or after a merit increase. Applied in sequence they compound.
- Compare a capped plan adjustment against an uncapped one over 20 years before assuming the difference is minor.
- Keep gross and net separate in your budget so that a Medicare premium change does not look like a missing COLA.
Limitations of this calculator
It cannot forecast. Future adjustments depend on price data that does not exist yet, so any multi-year projection here is an assumption you chose, not a prediction. It works on gross amounts and does not model Medicare premiums, federal or state income tax, or the taxation thresholds that apply to Social Security benefits. It applies a single rule uniformly, so plan caps, floors, waiting periods and partial first-year adjustments have to be handled by entering an adjusted rate yourself. It also assumes the adjustment applies to the whole amount, which is not true for plans that adjust only a portion of the benefit.
Related calculators
- To convert a dollar amount between years and test whether an adjustment kept pace, use the Inflation Calculator.
- To estimate the benefit a COLA will be applied to in the first place, use the Social Security Calculator.
- To model a defined-benefit pension payment before adjustments, use the Pension Calculator.
- To see what a workplace increase does to your pay, use the Pay Raise Calculator.
- To measure what a fixed sum will buy after years of price increases, use the Purchasing Power Calculator.
- To fit an adjusted benefit into a full retirement plan, use the Retirement Calculator.
In short: this page tells you the payment, the inflation tools tell you the prices, and the benefit tools tell you where the starting amount came from.
Sources
- Social Security Administration (SSA): Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Information for 2026 (2.8%, payable January 2026).
- Social Security Administration (SSA): Latest Cost-of-Living Adjustment (CPI-W computation).
- Social Security Administration (SSA): Cost-of-Living Adjustments, series of past COLAs.
- Social Security Administration (SSA): Application of COLA to a retirement benefit (truncation to the dime and to the dollar).
- U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM): Annuity payments and COLAs (CSRS 2.8%, FERS 2.0% for 2026).
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): Consumer Price Index (CPI-W and CPI-U) and the CPI release schedule.
⚠️ Common mistakes & edge cases
Adding the percentages together
The 2022 to 2026 COLAs sum to 23.1%, but they actually raised a benefit by 25.18%. Each adjustment applies to the already-raised amount, so always multiply the factors instead of adding the rates.
Assuming the last COLA repeats
The 8.7% adjustment effective for 2023 was followed by 3.2%, 2.5% and 2.8%. Projecting a high year forward produces a budget that quietly overstates income for decades.
Confusing the gross benefit with the deposit
The COLA raises the gross amount. Medicare Part B premiums, Part D and voluntary withholding come out afterwards, so a $56 gross increase can arrive as far less in your account.
Applying the Social Security rate to a pension
Many plans cap the annual adjustment, tie it to a different index, or provide none at all. Enter your plan's own rule rather than the SSA figure, or the projection will be wrong from year one.
Treating a COLA as a real raise
If prices rise 3% a year while the adjustment is 2.5%, the payment grows but buys less. Over ten years that gap alone costs about 4.75% of purchasing power, which shows up in the inflation field above.
Ignoring the rounding rule
Social Security pays a monthly benefit rounded down to the next lower dollar. Expecting $1,877.64 and seeing $1,877 is the rule working, not an error on the notice.
❓ Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate a cost-of-living adjustment?
Multiply the current amount by 1 plus the COLA as a decimal: New amount = Amount x (1 + COLA / 100). A $2,000 monthly benefit with the 2.8% Social Security COLA for 2026 becomes $2,000 x 1.028 = $2,056 per month, an increase of $56 a month or $672 a year. For several years in a row, apply the same step again to each new amount rather than multiplying the original figure.
What is the Social Security COLA for 2026?
The cost-of-living adjustment for 2026 is 2.8%, announced by SSA on October 24, 2025. It applies to benefits for December 2025, so the higher amount has been paid since January 2026. On a $2,000 monthly benefit it is an increase of $56, taking the payment to $2,056 before Medicare premiums and any withholding. The 2025 COLA was 2.5%.
When will the 2027 COLA be announced?
SSA bases the COLA on the CPI-W for July, August and September, so it announces the figure once the September consumer price index is published. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has scheduled the September 2026 CPI for October 14, 2026, and the COLA for 2027 will apply to December 2026 benefits paid in January 2027. Until SSA publishes it, any 2027 percentage you see is a projection; you can enter one here as your own COLA rate to see what it would mean for your benefit.
What are the recent Social Security COLAs?
The adjustments of the last five years were 5.9% for 2022, 8.7% for 2023, 3.2% for 2024, 2.5% for 2025 and 2.8% for 2026. Compounded together they raise a benefit by 25.18%, so a $2,000 monthly payment before the 2022 COLA becomes $2,503.53. Future COLAs are not known in advance and are announced each October.
Are COLAs compounded or added together?
They compound. Each adjustment is applied to the amount that already includes every earlier increase, so the cumulative rise is larger than the sum of the percentages. The 2022 to 2026 COLAs add up to 23.1% on paper but actually raise a benefit by 25.18%, a difference of 2.08 percentage points.
How is the Social Security COLA determined?
SSA compares the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for the third quarter of the current year against the third quarter of the last year in which a COLA was determined. The percentage increase, rounded to the nearest tenth of one percent, becomes the COLA. If there is no increase, there is no adjustment, and a COLA is never negative.
Does a COLA raise my paycheck the same way a merit raise does?
Mathematically the arithmetic is identical: both multiply your pay by 1 plus a percentage. The difference is purpose. A COLA is meant to keep pay level with prices and is usually applied across the board, while a merit or promotion raise rewards performance or a change in role. Some employers apply a COLA first and a merit increase on top of the adjusted salary, which compounds the two.
Will my Social Security payment go up by the full COLA amount?
Not always. The COLA raises the gross benefit, but the amount deposited in your account is the gross benefit minus the Medicare Part B premium if it is deducted from your check, any Part D or voluntary tax withholding, and other deductions. When the Part B premium rises in the same year, part of the increase can be absorbed, so it is worth checking the benefit notice SSA sends each December.
Do pensions get a cost-of-living adjustment?
It depends entirely on the plan. Federal CSRS annuities and military retired pay received the full 2.8% for 2026, while FERS annuities received 2.0%, because the FERS rule pays 2% when the price index rises between 2% and 3% (and generally only from age 62). Some state and local pensions apply an annual adjustment tied to a price index, some apply a fixed percentage, some cap the adjustment at a maximum such as 2% or 3%, and many private pensions provide no adjustment at all. Read your plan document, then enter the plan's rule in the calculator rather than assuming the Social Security figure applies.
What is the difference between a COLA and inflation?
Inflation is the measured change in prices. A COLA is a payment rule that reacts to it, usually with a lag and often using one specific index. If prices rise 3% a year while your COLA is 2.5%, your payment grows but buys slightly less each year. Over ten years that gap costs about 4.75% of purchasing power, which the inflation field in this calculator shows.
How many years should I project?
For budgeting, one adjustment is enough. For retirement planning, project the number of years you expect to draw the benefit, often 20 to 30. Use a conservative rate rather than the highest recent COLA: at an assumed 2.5% a year a $2,000 monthly benefit reaches $2,560 after 10 years, $3,277 after 20 and $4,195 after 30.
Does Social Security round the new benefit amount?
Yes, in two steps. SSA applies the COLA to your primary insurance amount and truncates the result to the next lower dime, then pays the monthly benefit rounded down to the next lower whole dollar (after any Medicare premium is subtracted). In SSA's own example, a $2,108.50 amount raised by the 2.8% COLA becomes $2,167.50, so the benefit is paid as $2,167. The optional rounding switch in this calculator reproduces both steps for monthly amounts so the figure matches the notice you receive.
Is this COLA calculator free to use?
Yes. There is no sign-up, no fee and no limit on how many scenarios you can run. Change the amount, the rate, the number of years or the mode as often as you like, and switch to the SSA history mode to see what the 2022 to 2026 adjustments did to any starting amount.
💡 Good to know
A COLA is never negative
If the measured index does not rise, Social Security simply makes no adjustment and benefits stay level. Payments are not cut when prices fall, which is why a flat year is not a mistake on your notice.
The increase is permanent, and it compounds
Every adjustment becomes part of the base for the next one. That is why five years of COLAs raised a benefit 25.18% rather than the 23.1% the headline percentages suggest, and why the effect grows for decades.
Check the December notice, not the news
SSA announces the percentage in October, but the notice you receive in December states your own new amount after rounding and after any deductions. That figure, not the headline rate, is what your budget should use.