COLA Ledger

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

The 1984 Social Security COLA — 3.5%

Cost-of-living adjustment, 1984

3.5%

This adjustment was determined in 1983, took effect with benefits payable for December 1983, and first reached checks in January 1984.

Determined in
1983December-effective
First in a check
January 1984
Comparison quarter
Q1 1983CPI-W 98.2
Base quarter
Q1 1982CPI-W 94.8

SSA’s own table lists this adjustment under 1983, the year it was determined. The public name it by the year it reaches a check, which is one later. This site uses the name people search for. Why the two labels disagree.

The CPI-W values behind the 3.5%

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 1984 adjustment
QuarterMonthCPI-W index
Base — Q1 1982January 198294.700
February 198295.000
March 198294.800
Base quarter average94.8
Comparison — Q1 1983January 198398.100
February 198398.100
March 198398.400
Comparison quarter average98.2

The quarterly averages are rounded to the nearest tenth — the precision the determination-1983 notice specifies — and the percentage increase between them is then rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentage point. That gives 3.5%.

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 3.5% is what this page states and what governed the checks. Our recomputation from the rebased series returns 3.6% — 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 3.5% 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 1984 adjustment on two benchmark monthly benefits
Monthly benefit beforeAfter the adjustmentMonthly increaseOver a year
$1,000$1,035+$35+$420
$2,000$2,070+$70+$840

The 1984 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 1984, each traced to the government table it came from.

Committed Social Security and Medicare parameters for 1984
Parameter1984
Maximum earnings subject to Social Security tax$37,800
SSI federal payment rate — individual$314
SSI federal payment rate — couple$472
Earnings needed for one Social Security credit$390
Retirement earnings test — under full retirement age$5,160
Retirement earnings test — year of full retirement age$6,960
Substantial gainful activity — non-blind$300
Substantial gainful activity — blind$580
Trial work period — a service month$75
First PIA bend point (eligibility at 62 this year)$267
Second PIA bend point (eligibility at 62 this year)$1,612

Where to go next

Sources and freshness

Figures effective December 1983. 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