It's official: Social Security recipients will get a 3.2% raise in 2024 from the Social Security Administration.
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. Those who don’t need the raise can consider funneling it into a high-yield savings account with APYs between 4.5% and 5%.