By now every citizen of the United States who has a Social Security benefit is well aware of the function of the COLA. Simply put, the government’s intent through the COLA is to enable retirees to keep up with annual inflation.
For this reason, primarily, retirees see an increase in Social Security benefits every year. And every year this increase is different, since it depends on several factors. The main one is inflation, so it is a good idea to always keep it in mind.
In that sense it is also important to know the COLA next year. As of last 12th, we all know that the government has announced a 3.2% COLA increase. This will cause retirement checks to increase, but not as much as last year.
Knowing this we can make an estimate of how much Social Security checks will increase starting January 2024. Each check will go up a different amount, so we must estimate to know our benefit increase.
HOW MUCH WILL SOCIAL SECURITY CHECKS INCREASE FOR THE 2024 COLA?
If we take into account what the average Social Security check is and that the increase will be 3,2% we can already know how many dollars it will increase by 2024. So, let’s look at this data to make it much clearer.
Let’s take into account the average checks of various categories. So we will see what the increase will be, taking into account that assumed 3,2%, in each of these different categories of pensions:
- Age pensioner. With an increase of $58, the average check will be $1885 in 2024.
- Worker with disability. If we take into account the 3,2% increase, the average check will increase $47, bringing us to $1,530.
- Widow or widower. In this case the increase would be $55. This would get us to an average Social Security check of $1,759.
If, on the other hand, we look at a retired couple where they both collect a Social Security check the income would increase by $95. Therefore, such a couple would reach approximately $3,067 per month.
We must keep in mind that everything is still 100% unconfirmed. Although the forecasts seem to point to this figure, we should still watch out when it comes to confirming it. Next October 12 we will know the exact figure of the COLA that will make the Social Security checks increase.