For Immediate Release – May 13, 2025
2026 COLA Prediction Rises to 2.4% as President Trump Signs Executive Order to Lower Drug Costs
TSCL predicts Social Security’s 2026 COLA will be 2.4 percent, up from last month’s prediction of 2.3 percent. That’s also 0.1 percentage points lower than 2025’s COLA, which was 2.5 percent.
The 2026 COLA is projected to be the lowest since 2021. High inflation during the COVID-19 pandemic led to higher-than-average COLAs of 5.9 percent in 2022 and 8.7 percent in 2023. If TSCL’s prediction for 2026 holds, seniors can expect next year’s COLA to be the lowest since the 1.3 percent implemented in 2021.
This comes after President Trump signed an executive order yesterday aimed at lowering prescription drug costs. The executive order sets a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to lower the cost of prescription drugs in the U.S. to match what they charge in other countries. Otherwise, the government will limit what it is willing to pay.
The executive order accuses pharmaceutical companies of price-gouging Americans. It claims that by charging Americans more for drugs, drug companies subsidize other countries at our expense.
Key Insights:
- TSCL’s upcoming research finds that many seniors spend more than $1,000 monthly on healthcare costs. The 2025 Senior Survey, which featured responses from 1,920 Social Security—eligible Americans, found that 20 percent spent at least $1,000 monthly on healthcare costs. Meanwhile, it found that 57 percent of American seniors get by on less than $2,000 of take-home income per month.
- Seniors are afraid their benefits will fall behind. A whopping 94 percent of TSCL’s 2025 Senior Survey respondents said they thought 2025’s COLA of 2.5 percent was too low and that their monthly Social Security checks would fall behind inflation. Just 5 percent of respondents thought the 2025 COLA was fair, while 1 percent thought it was too high.
- Lagging COLA adjustments risk pushing millions of seniors into poverty. TSCL’s 2025 Senior Survey shows that 39 percent of American seniors rely on Social Security for 100 percent of their income, while 57 percent get by on $2,000 per month or less of monthly take-home earnings. For many of these seniors, a COLA that doesn’t keep pace with inflation means a drop in their living standards.
TSCL Executive Director Shannon Benton says…
- “President Trump’s executive order is a big step for Medicare’s ability to negotiate prices. American taxpayers should not be paying more than the price charged in other countries for the same drugs, especially those made by American companies. American taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize the rest of the world’s healthcare while our own seniors are struggling to get by.
- “Our research puts numbers to what seniors have been telling us for years: Social Security benefits aren’t keeping up with inflation, inadequate COLAs are to blame, and seniors aren’t happy with Congress’s failure to act. The vast majority of Americans, 55.8 million seniors—93 percent—believe Social Security and Medicare reform should be a high or top priority for Congress and the Presidential administration.”
- “If our predictions come true and the 2026 COLA comes in at the lowest we’ve seen since 2021, seniors will face additional pressure at a time when they’re already strained financially. Our research shows that 73 percent of American seniors rely on Social Security for at least half their income, with 39 percent depending on the program for all of their income.”
About TSCL
The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) is one of the nation’s largest nonpartisan seniors’ groups. Established in 1992 as a special project of The Retired Enlisted Association, our mission is to promote and assist our members and supporters, educate and alert senior citizens about their rights and freedoms as U.S. citizens, and protect and defend the benefits seniors have earned and paid for. TSCL consists of vocally active senior citizens concerned about the protection of their Social Security, Medicare, and veteran or military retiree benefits. To learn more, visit https://seniorsleague.org/about-us/.
About the TSCL COLA Model:
TSCL issues a new prediction of the next COLA for Social Security each month using our statistical model. The model incorporates the Consumer Price Index, the Federal Reserve interest rate, and the national unemployment rate to make its predictions. The model’s predictions update throughout the year, adjusting in response to economic conditions. For additional information about the model, contact Alex Moore, TSCL’s statistician, at amoore@tsclhq.org.
We released a new version of the model, v1.2, in January 2025. The new version updates the model’s use of dates, processing data according to the federal fiscal year instead of the calendar year. The new model also reduces each prediction’s reliance on previous predictions made throughout the federal fiscal year.
Contact Information:
- Shannon Benton, Executive Director: sbenton@tsclhq.org; 703-548-5568
- Alex Moore, Statistician: amoore@tsclhq.org; 571-374-2658
