COLA Ledger

An independent reference — not affiliated with the Social Security Administration. Every figure traced to the government publication that produced it.

The 1978 Social Security COLA — 6.5%

Cost-of-living adjustment, 1978

6.5%

This adjustment took effect with benefits payable for June 1978, so it reached checks from July 1978.

Determined in
1978June-effective
First in a check
July 1978
Comparison quarter
Q1 1978CPI-W 63.2
Base quarter
Q1 1977CPI-W 59.4

SSA’s own table lists this adjustment under 1978, the year it was determined. This site uses the name people search for. Why the two labels disagree.

The CPI-W values behind the 6.5%

Every adjustment is an average of three monthly index readings against an average of three others. These are the six values, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics published them for series CWUR0000SA0 — all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted.

CPI-W monthly index values and quarterly averages behind the 1978 adjustment
QuarterMonthCPI-W index
Base — Q1 1977January 197758.900
February 197759.500
March 197759.800
Base quarter average59.4
Comparison — Q1 1978January 197862.800
February 197863.200
March 197863.700
Comparison quarter average63.2

The quarterly averages are rounded to the nearest tenth — the precision the determination-1978 notice specifies — and the percentage increase between them is then rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentage point. That gives 6.5%.

This year cannot be reproduced from the current index — and here is why

SSA computed this COLA from the CPI-W as published on the 1967=100 base. BLS rebased the index to 1982-84=100 in 1988, and the converted one-decimal values now published cannot round-trip the original arithmetic to the final tenth. SSA's published COLA stands; the recomputation below is shown for provenance and differs by at most 0.1 percentage point.

SSA’s published figure of 6.5% is what this page states and what governed the checks. Our recomputation from the rebased series returns 6.4% — a difference of exactly one tenth of a percentage point, and a data-availability boundary rather than a disagreement about the rule. The six affected years are listed in full.

What 6.5% did to a benefit

Monthly benefit amounts are floored to the whole dollar after the adjustment is applied, which is why these figures are not simply the percentage multiplied out.

Effect of the 1978 adjustment on two benchmark monthly benefits
Monthly benefit beforeAfter the adjustmentMonthly increaseOver a year
$1,000$1,065+$65+$780
$2,000$2,130+$130+$1,560

The 1978 figures this adjustment set

Most Social Security parameters move with the adjustment or with the national average wage index. These are the committed values for 1978, each traced to the government table it came from.

Committed Social Security and Medicare parameters for 1978
Parameter1978
Maximum earnings subject to Social Security tax$17,700
SSI federal payment rate — individual$189.40
SSI federal payment rate — couple$284.10
Earnings needed for one Social Security credit$250
Retirement earnings test — under full retirement age$3,240
Retirement earnings test — year of full retirement age$4,000
Substantial gainful activity — non-blind$260
Substantial gainful activity — blind$334
Trial work period — a service month$50

Where to go next

Sources and freshness

Figures effective June 1978. Page figures last verified against the sources above on 10 August 2026. BLS data retrieved 10 August 2026. BLS.gov cannot vouch for data or analyses derived from these data after retrieval. Corrections: the correction log · support@inventum.com.au