Key Point: Recent data is indicating that the consumer price index, the primary indicator of inflation in the United States, stood at an annual rate of 5.4 percent in June—which marked a thirteen-year high.

With this in mind and as inflation continues its upward trend throughout this year, Social Security’s cost of living adjustment (COLA) for 2022 is expected to get a sizeable boost as well.

But how much of a raise can Americans expect? The most likely scenario currently is that the benefits will see the biggest increase in nearly four decades when officials announce COLA, which the Social Security Administration (SSA) typically confirms in October.

6 Percent Increase Coming?

According to the Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group, it is anticipating that Social Security benefits could rise by a whopping 6.1 percent for 2022. If this indeed occurs, it would be the largest increase since the year 1983.

However, as reported by Think Advisor, “advocacy groups argue that Social Security COLAs should be based on the CPI for Elderly, or CPI-E, which better reflects senior expenses. Indeed, Congress is considering at least one bill to make the change. And though the CPI-E calculation typically has shown higher COLAs in the past eleven years, that is not always the case.”

It continued: “Over the past eleven years, the CPI-E measure has grown faster than the CPI-W. But in some years it doesn’t. Using June inflation data, the COLA for 2022 would be only 4.8 percent if calculated using the CPI-E.”

Some experts have expressed concern that enacting a COLA change too quickly will only limit the increase for 2022 Social Security benefits.

“The window for action affecting the 2022 COLA is extremely narrow due to the COLA announcement being Oct. 13, 2021,” Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson, of the Senior Citizens League, told Think Advisor.

“That would make getting this passed as a stand-alone bill extremely difficult, especially in the divided Senate,” she added.

Seniors Waiting for Help

Whatever the outcome, there’s little questioning the fact that in this high-inflation environment, many senior citizens are struggling to pay for basic necessities like food, rent, and health care with just their income from Social Security benefits.

In a recent FedSmith.com column linked to the Senior Citizens League website, human resources expert Ralph Smith said that the overall inflation rate has surged 5 percent over the last twelve months, adding that the rate “was higher than anticipated.”

“While no one knows the exact percentage of the COLA increase retirees will see in January, we do know there will be an increase,” he wrote. “That is different than in some recent years when there was not any increase.”

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.