The second round of June’s Social Security payments, worth up to $5,108 for the highest-income earners who retire at age 70, will be distributed in five days. Here is all you need to know about June’s Social Security payments.

So rather than hope for a larger COLA in 2026, what retirees should actually hope for is a change to the way those raises are calculated. Using a more senior-specific index that measures changes in retiree costs like healthcare could lead to more generous COLAs in future years without requiring a scenario where everyone struggles due to inflation.

The agency that collects the data used to determine the cost-of-living-adjustment has had to pull back on how much data it uses.