Americans who depend upon Social Security will get a 3.6 percent raise next year, boosting the average check by $75 a month.

The extra payout was announced by the Social Security Administration this morning, just after officials rolled out the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) following the release of the September inflation report.

The COLA is how Social Security factors in the rising cost of living and gives beneficiaries enough extra money to keep up with inflation.

Starting in January, the average monthly check for nearly 71 million Social Security recipients will be around $2,163, versus the 2026 average of around $2,088.

Social Security payouts depend on inflation data that backs up the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to decide how big the COLA will be each year.

CPI looks at a broad basket of goods and services Americans regularly purchase to gauge how much inflation is rising – and Social Security uses this pricing data to determine a fair COLA to make sure beneficiaries can keep up with costs.

But despite getting their biggest raise in five years, Americans who depend on Social Security checks are still falling behind.

'Another year, another COLA that falls short of expectations,' said Shannon Benton, the executive director of the Senior Citizens League.

The Senior Citizens League says that seniors constantly tell them that they don't feel like COLAs reflect inflation as they experience it.

And in the organization's 2026 Senior Survey, 89 percent of respondents said they felt the last COLA was too low and their benefits would fall behind inflation.

'Annual inflation has now outpaced annual wage growth for a sixth consecutive month. In other words, prices are rising faster than paychecks,' eToro's US investment analyst Bret Kenwell told the Daily Mail.

According to a recent report from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, 53 percent of retired Americans say Social Security checks are their primary source of income - while 91 percent say it's an important source of income.

'Seniors will find themselves disappointed today when they look up the COLA announcement in the news,' Benton said. 'The reality is that millions depend on Social Security to retire with dignity, and today's announcement puts that ideal in jeopardy for millions.'