Bars over time
Did the Social Security Raise Keep Up With Prices?
Each COLA minus CPI-U inflation over the twelve months it was paid, percentage points
Plays the chart through its history. Pauses are where the data set a record or moved most.
Palanor calculation: the SSA’s COLA minus the change in the CPI-U (BLS, via FRED) from the month the COLA took effect to the same month a year later. Below zero, prices rose faster than benefits while that raise was being paid. The newest COLA appears once its twelve months have passed.
Because the COLA is set on last year’s inflation, retirees fall behind when prices speed up and catch up when they slow. The 2021 raise fell well short of the 2022 inflation surge; the 2022 raise then ran ahead.
What this chart reads
- Social Security COLA minus Inflation While Paid · ptsas “COLA minus inflation while paid”latest 2024-12-01
Sources
Social Security COLA minus Inflation While Paid · pts. Source: Social Security Administration (COLA table, public domain) and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U via FRED CPIAUCSL (public domain). Palanor calculation in src/lib/ssa/cola.ts.
Charts are drawn from Palanor's signal library and recomputed from source data on every view. Transformations (changes, indexing, year-on-year rates) are Palanor's.