It's official: Social Security recipients will get a 3.2% raise in 2024.
The Social Security Administration made the announcement Thursday following the release of September inflation data, which was needed for the calculation. The raise will add about $57 dollars a month to the average retirement benefit. Next year’s cost-of-living adjustment is way down from the 8.7% bump seniors received in 2023, reflecting cooling inflation.
But slowing price increases are a very different thing from prices that are actually falling. Food, for example, is up 3.7% over the past 12 months. So 3.2% won’t feel like that much, especially since Medicare Part B premiums are rising by nearly $10 per month next year. These premiums are automatically deducted from most beneficiaries' Social Security checks, so the net gain from the COLA will be closer to $47 a month.
At least the COLA announcement provides some budget clarity for the nation’s roughly 67 million Social Security recipients. And those who don’t need the raise can consider funneling it into a high-yield savings account with APYs between 4.5% and 5% |
