What the 2026 COLA actually does to your check

The headline was 2.8%. What lands in the bank is smaller, because the Medicare Part B premium went up in the same January. Type your amount and see both numbers, with every figure traced to the government publication that produced it.

General information, not financial, tax, legal or benefits advice. Figures show what published rates and formulas produce for the amounts you enter; your actual payment depends on your earnings record, claim age, withholding and Medicare status. COLA Ledger is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CMS or any U.S. government agency. Confirm your figures with SSA or your my Social Security account.

The number this site exists for

On a $2,000 monthly benefit, the 2.8% adjustment adds +$56 of gross. The Part B premium rose +$18 over the same turn of the year and comes straight out of the payment. The raise that actually landed was +$38 — an effective 2.09% against a headline 2.8%. The premium increase took 31.96% of it.

Headline adjustment

2.8%for 2026

Net raise on $2,000

2.09%after Part B

Taken by the premium

31.96%of the raise

Part B premium

$202.90was $185.00

The same calculation run across every benefit amount — the share is not a fixed haircut, and it moves a long way across the ladder.

The 2027 adjustment

The 2026 numbers, in one table

Popular amounts

Each of these is a full ledger page: gross, net, annual figures, where the amount sits in the retired-worker distribution, and whether the hold-harmless cap binds.

• $1,000/mo$825 lands
• $1,200/mo$1,030 lands
• $1,500/mo$1,339 lands
• $1,800/mo$1,647 lands
• $2,000/mo$1,853 lands
• $2,500/mo$2,367 lands
• $3,000/mo$2,881 lands
• $3,500/mo$3,395 lands

All 46 amounts on the ladder — the rungs follow SSA’s own $100 publication bands, not a page count.

Recent adjustments

Every adjustment since 1975, recomputed from the raw index — 51 of them, each with the six monthly CPI-W readings that produced it.

Start here

• The COLA calculator

  Any monthly benefit amount through the 2.8% adjustment, with the ladder of published amounts alongside.

• The Medicare offset calculator

  What the Part B premium and any income-related adjustment do to the payment.

• The 2027 projection

  A scenario band derived from published CPI-W months, never a forecast.

• IRMAA brackets

  Every year whose bracket table could be read from a primary source, and why some cannot.

• Full retirement age

  By birth year, with the adjustment history that cohort has actually seen.

• How this site works

  Every source, every gate, and every figure we cannot reproduce — stated rather than hidden.