The shutdown of the federal government has delayed release of a key report needed for computing Social Security cost-of-living adjustments for next year, but the Associated Press suggests a preliminary increase of about 1.5 percent.
The increase for 2013 was 1.7 percent, following a 3.6 percent jump for 2012. Recipients in 2011 and ’10 received no cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, at all, because inflation was too low.
The federal government cannot compute the COLA for 2014 until the federal government releases its inflation report for September. The government shutdown has delayed the release of that report. The government typically releases the COLA for the following year in mid-October.
The COLA is determined by the change in the “consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers, from the third quarter of the previous year (2012) to the third quarter of the current year,” according to the Social Security Administration. This figure is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
