Social Security COLA updates not affecting survivor benefits - why the discrepancy?
I received my annual Social Security Statement yesterday and noticed something weird. All of my projected retirement benefit amounts increased (which I'm guessing is from the 2025 COLA adjustment), but the Survivors Benefits section shows exactly the same amounts as before - nothing changed for potential spousal benefits, child benefits, or the child-in-care benefit amounts. Is this normal? Do survivor benefits get adjusted on a different schedule than retirement benefits? Or is this possibly an error in my statement? I'm trying to plan ahead for my family and want to make sure I understand how these different benefits work together.
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Yara Khalil
mine didnt change either, weird huh
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LunarEclipse
•Have you tried calling SSA to ask about it? I'm wondering if it's a known issue with the statements or something else.
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Keisha Brown
This is actually normal. The estimates for survivor benefits shown on your Statement are calculated differently than your retirement benefit projections. The survivor benefit estimates are based on your current earnings record and don't automatically incorporate the COLA increases in the same way retirement benefits do. They should be updated when you receive a completely new statement, but they operate on different calculation parameters. The important thing to know is that actual survivor benefits WILL receive the same COLA increases as other benefits once someone is receiving them. This is just an issue with how the estimates are displayed on the Statement.
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Paolo Esposito
•wait so ths means if i die my wife will get LESS than whats on my statement??? or MORE???
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Keisha Brown
•Neither. The actual survivor benefits your survivors would receive would include all applicable COLAs up to the point of claim. The Statement just doesn't SHOW future COLAs in the survivor section, but they would be applied when the time comes. The base calculation is correct, it just doesn't visually project forward with inflation the same way the retirement section does.
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Amina Toure
OMG I noticed this too! I thought I was going crazy because I swear EVERYTHING should go up with COLA. I spent 2 HOURS trying to talk to someone at SSA last week and kept getting disconnected!!! This system is so frustrating. So we're just supposed to guess what our families might actually get?? How is that fair!!??
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Oliver Weber
•I had the exact same problem trying to reach someone about my widow's benefits calculation. After getting disconnected four times, I was about to give up when a friend told me about Claimyr. It's this service that gets you through to a live Social Security agent without the wait. I was skeptical but checked out their video demo (https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU) and gave it a try through their website claimyr.com. Got through to an agent in about 20 minutes instead of spending hours redialing. The agent confirmed that survivor benefits DO get COLA adjustments when actually paid out, just not in the projected numbers on the statement.
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FireflyDreams
Social Security survivor benefits absolutely receive COLA adjustments just like retirement benefits do. What you're seeing is a limitation in how the Statement displays PROJECTED benefits. The retirement benefit projections on your Statement show estimated future amounts with assumed inflation/wage growth AND COLA increases built in. The survivor benefit section simply shows what your survivors would receive if you died THIS YEAR based on your current earnings record, without projecting future COLA increases. When actual survivor benefits are paid, they receive the same annual COLA as all other Social Security benefits. In fact, once someone is receiving ANY type of Social Security benefit - retirement, disability, survivors, or SSI - the COLA is applied uniformly across all payment types.
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LunarEclipse
•Thank you! That makes sense now. So the survivor benefit estimates are basically showing current values rather than future projected values. That should be explained more clearly on the Statement itself.
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Natasha Kuznetsova
My parents went through this when my dad passed away 2 years ago. My mom's survivor benefit definitely gets the COLA increases each year. The statement is just confusing in how they present it.
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Yara Khalil
•sorry about your dad
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Paolo Esposito
I think the whole stateemnt is messed up anyway. mine says I'll get $2800 at full retirement but my buddy who made less than me is already getting $3100. The whole calucations are wrong IMO
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FireflyDreams
•Your benefit amount depends on your highest 35 years of earnings, not just recent salary. If your friend had more years of higher earnings (adjusted for inflation), worked longer, or waited until after FRA to claim, he could definitely receive more despite having a lower recent salary than you. The Statement estimates are generally accurate given the information available at the time.
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Amina Toure
So what DOES change on the statement year to year? Is it just my earnings record being updated? Is there any way to see what my family would ACTUALLY get with COLA included if something happened to me next year instead of right now?
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Keisha Brown
•Your earnings record updates, your retirement benefit projections change based on recent earnings and COLA, and the survivor benefit base amounts recalculate if your earnings change significantly. To estimate future survivor benefits with COLA, you can take the current survivor benefit amount shown and manually apply the projected COLA percentage for each year. For example, if survivor benefits show $2,000 now and COLA is projected at 2.6% for next year, they would be around $2,052 next year. It's not perfect, but gives you a rough idea for planning purposes.
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LunarEclipse
Thanks everyone for the helpful responses! I understand much better now. Seems like this is just a limitation in how the Statement displays information rather than an actual difference in how benefits are adjusted. I wish SSA would make this clearer on the Statement itself to avoid confusion.
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