Here's the Average Social Security Benefit COLA Over the Last 10 Years
Social Security recipients get an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to help protect the buying power of benefits from the effects of inflation. That protection mechanism has been especially crucial in recent years, as pandemic-era stimulus programs and loose monetary policy helped push U.S. inflation to a four-decade high in 2022.
One consequence of that unfortunate situation was an 8.7% COLA for recipients in 2023, the largest raise since 1982 and the fourth-largest raise since annual COLAs became law in 1975.
And that unusually large increase came on the heels of another unusually big increase: a 5.9% COLA in 2022, which also qualifies as one of the biggest in program history.
Source Fool.com
