For Immediate Release:
July 11, 2024
The Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2024 Projected at 2.63%
According to The Senior Citizens League
Our model points to a substantially lower COLA for next year after the 3.2% COLA in 2023. “The 2025 COLA prediction is about 2.63%, up from 2.57% last month,” says Alex Moore, The Senior Citizens League’s Social Security and Medicare statistician and managing partner at Blacksmith Professional Services.
The rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index used to calculate the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), fell to 3.0% for June. Although easing inflation should relieve older consumers, the rapidly increasing price of groceries the 2020s have seen thus far mean financial relief is still far away.
From 2020 to 2023, the cost of the average grocery item with direct prices tracked by the CPI has risen by 24%. While eggs captured many headlines with a rise of 86%, many other key items, such as coffee, sugar, bread, and ham saw their cost increase by more than a third.
Rising grocery prices is creating food insecurity for many retirees. Feeding America estimated that 5.5 million Americans age 60 and above suffered from food insecurity in 2021, in the most recent study available on the subject, and that number is likely higher today.
In TSCL’s 2024 Senior Survey, which had more than 1,550 respondents from across the United States, 34% of retirees said they had visited a food pantry or applied for food stamps over the last 12 months. What’s more, 60% of respondents said food was the fastest-growing expense in their monthly budgets, which was more than double the next hardest-hit expense category, housing.
