Social Security beneficiaries will have to wait a bit longer to find out how much their benefits payments will increase by for 2026. Thanks to the ongoing government shut down, the scheduled announcement for the annual cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) has been delayed by more than a week.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that it will now publish the September 2025 Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Friday, Oct. 24. Once the CPI is announced, the Social Security Administration can then reveal the COLA for 2026.

The yearly COLA is determined by the Social Security Administration. The agency determines the adjustment by using the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners (CPI-W) for the months of July, August and September and comparing that to the same time period fro

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