COLA, SSI

No Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2016

October 15, 2015 • By

Reading Time: 1 Minute

Last Updated: March 17, 2021

pink piggy bank Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is an increase in the benefit amount people receive each month. By law, the monthly Social Security and SSI federal benefit rate increases when there is a rise in the cost of living. The government measures changes in the cost of living through the Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index (CPI-W).

The CPI has not risen since the last cost-of-living adjustment in 2015. As a result, your SSI benefit rate and, for most people, your Social Security benefit amount will stay the same in 2016.

This news isn’t necessarily bad. When inflation stays at the same rate, your cost of living also stays the same. Prices for goods and services, on average, haven’t increased enough to affect the COLA.

Other changes that would normally take effect based on changes in the national average wage index also won’t begin in January 2016. Since there is no COLA, the statute also prohibits a change in the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax, as well as the retirement earnings test exempt amounts. These amounts will remain unchanged in 2016. The new fact sheet provides more information on 2016 Social Security and SSI changes.

For additional information about the 2016 COLA, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/cola.

For additional information about changes in the national average wage index, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/COLA/AWI.html.

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About the Author

Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications

Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications

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Comments

  1. Sandra C.

    In what country are you saying prices and the cost of living has not gone up. When chicken eggs are up to $2.99 a dozen, beef is up to $5.00 per pound; all food prices have gone up in 2016! Rents are up, my electric bill is $296.00 per month and rising, interest rates are riduculous (try to buy a car with no cost of living raise)! Why should entitlements go up and not social security! Obama has destroyed the lives of many seniors who cannot work!

  2. Marvin H.

    No cola? The reason is each year for the last quarter of the year notice gas prices drop to an extreme low. I have watched this for several years and it is the same each year when time to determine the next cola. Appears the government knows how to regulate the cola. We send way to much money to other countries and also money for the world to move into the USA…

  3. Austin

    I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but a big reason SSI recipients, including myself, get shafted is because the resource limit hasn’t been raised since 1989. It’s $2000 if you’re single, 3k if married. That means if you have over that amount in the bank/401k/IRA/whatever the hell else they consider resources, they takea machete to your SSI. If they would simply adjust the resource limit for inflation since ’89, it would be 8k for single 9k for married. Then maybe SSI recipients might be able to save some money. I think it’s a better solution than asking them to raise the benefit amount, seeing as they don’t have the money to do it since they do such a wonderful job managing the budget as it is. Plus if they raised the resource limit, maybe changes in our cost of living wouldn’t hurt so much. Oh, & when I say they, i mean Dems & Repubs. I’m a Democrat, but I’m not going to sit here and point my finger at the GOP. Nor will I throw Obama under the bus, seeing how i voted for him in the first place. It takes two to tango. Both sides screwed it up, both sides need to fix it. I don’t care wich way you lean, get out there and vote for people who are also sick & tired of the BS, but are in a position to spark change. Wich us average citizens aren’t in a position to, except to vote for those who are. All i ask is that we don’t rely on fox news or cnn for info on who our elected officials are and what they stand for. Both networks are biased. Fox leans right, cnn leans left. Do your own research. Find out for yourself who these people are. Judge them how you would want to be judged. I think some Jewish guy said that like 2000 years ago. Anyhow, to sum up my long winded point, raise the SSI resource limit & make informed decisions about your elected officials. Blame the President,Dems,Repubs,illegals. Blame whoever you want. All i know is the only way to guarantee things will never change is to sit around and complain about how things will never change.

  4. Jim

    For everyone’s information, it is most of both Democrats AND Republicans who appear to have no interest in helping seniors and veterans. A few of both yes, but it take a majority!
    Maybe we need a complete NEW group of officials in Washington???

  5. Jim

    Except for gas, almost all products and services have increased! Even when we did have a SMALL SS increase, it was eaten up by an increase in my supplement insurance.
    Every year, for the past several years, my spending income has decreased drastically!

    Our elected government, including Obama, appear to care less about us seniors who have contributed all our lives, not only to Social Security, but also have paid our taxes.

    Obama and elected officials, seem to care much more spending money on other countries, then to US senior citizens! I am also a Vietnam veteran, and it is very obvious to me that our government could also care less about those who have served our country, so government officials can live “high on the hog”

    Someone, somewhere, MUST TAKE ACTION FOR SENIORS AND VETERANS!!

  6. Jorge

    Why do we have to feed the obese lazy people of this country? Just watch them at the store and see how they fill their shopping carts to the top while we have to pay, and settle for 1/3 of what they get free. This isn’t fair, but to our stupid Government it seems fair.

  7. Ramona

    OMG not again, this is the third time they claim there is no raise in the cost of living, in 4 years! I am living off of 877 dollars a month! OH BUNK! I would like just one of these idiots to try it out for a month! I had to LEAVE the country in order to afford to EAT. And it is still expensive, and it still is not enough. ( we are allowed to live elsewhere by law) But at the cost of what, not seeing my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or meeting my daughters boyfriend! This so so sucks. The only thing that has saved me is that the dollars value went up here. Errrrr and watch they will pull this stunt again next year! It would be nice if the State of Washington would pay me the 5k they owe me for my interpreting services from over 3 years ago! This has nothing to do with COLA is my guess, it has to do with the crappy economy up north. Of course that’erxs what I hear, I am not privy to fo home, because a ticket would cost me a third of my Social Security. And for those who want to tell me to go get a job, I did, 3 hours a day, 15 dollars a day, lol. And I tried to work another but it wiped me out, I am on SSD. errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I had a bad feeling about this. And sure enough I was right. am going to have to think out of the box again.Invent something to earn money. I need a literay agen, I wrote a book, help! jajajaja

    • Ramona

      opps better learn how to spell first huh lol

      • Jim

        Which is more important, correct spelling or the welfare of our seniors and veterans????

    • Jorge

      Get a proofreader to check your spelling.

  8. Helen

    Hey, No SSI increase-fight fire with fire, grow a garden, wear old cloth, build a chicken coup and buy a chicken or rabbit, stay healthy. Stay home and watch TV; watch American haters blow up Americans and the country we all help built. Pres.George W Bush helped us old folks. “Happy Holidays” Tell your great-grand kids no $ this year, no birthday or Christmas presents; our government is going to use our SSI $ for other more important causes.

  9. Helen

    Hey, fight fire with fire, no increase, OK! Grow a garden, wear our old cloth, stay home and watch TV, watch them blow up the country we built. Remember when our employers were taking monies from every paycheck for our retirement. Hindsight . George W Bush took care of us old people. “Happy Holidays” tell your grand-grandkids the government say no $ this year, need it for immigrants.

    • Fred s.

      Get rid of the double dip ilaw and give back that money that they took for the war

  10. david b.

    I would love to see our politicians live on $750 social security and $194 in foodstamps a month. We’re not getting an increase because gas is cheaper?? It wouldn’t matter to me if gas were free because after paying rent, bills, food, hygiene items, toiletries, cleaning supplies, public transportation, and co-pays for doctor visits and medication and other things I know that I’m forgetting I have no possible chance in hell to be able to afford to purchase an automobile and pay insurance. I don’t consider myself as living I just attempt to survive. After my bills are all paid and sometimes some don’t get paid or I should say can’t be paid I have no money to do anything else. This is not living. I think all of us trying to survive on what we are intended to live on should all buy tents and pitch them on our politicians lawns and borrow their electric and use their showers and bathrooms. That should free up a few dollars so that we can possibly go out to dinner or do something other than sit at home doing nothing but watch television. No cost of living increase?? Please explain to me again why?

    • Moneyman

      Do you have to be poor to get food stamps?

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