Will Social Security benefit amounts increase with COLA if I delay claiming until 70?
I'm trying to plan my retirement finances and I'm confused about how the Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs) work with delayed benefits. I'm currently 66 and planning to wait until 70 to start collecting Social Security to maximize my monthly amount. When I check my estimated benefit on the mySocialSecurity portal, it shows I'd get about $3,450/month if I wait until 70. My question is: will this amount increase with each year's COLA between now and when I turn 70? Or is the estimate I see today fixed, and I'll just get that exact amount when I start collecting in 2029? I'm trying to create an accurate retirement budget and knowing whether those four years of COLAs will be applied makes a big difference in my planning. Thanks for any help understanding this!
14 comments
Join the conversation
Eleanor Foster
Yes, your benefit WILL increase with COLAs even before you start collecting! The SSA applies COLAs to your PIA (Primary Insurance Amount) regardless of whether you've started receiving benefits yet. So that $3,450 estimate will likely be higher by the time you actually claim at 70, depending on inflation rates over the next four years. This is on top of the delayed retirement credits you're earning by waiting until 70.
0 coins
Nathan Kim
•Thank you! That's exactly what I needed to know. So just to be clear, both the COLAs and the delayed retirement credits are working in my favor simultaneously from now until 70? That's better than I thought!
0 coins
Lucas Turner
my mom always thought benefits were locked at whatever rate when u first become eligible (at like 62 i think?) but she was wrong about that. SSA adjusts everyones benefit calculation each year with COLA even if your not collecting yet
0 coins
Kai Rivera
•Your mom's confusion is actually pretty common! There's a difference between the COLA adjustments (which happen to everyone's benefit calculation) and the early/delayed claiming adjustments (which are based on when you actually start collecting relative to your Full Retirement Age). Both factors affect your final benefit amount but in different ways.
0 coins
Anna Stewart
Let me share what happened to me - I waited until 69 to file (wished I'd waited till 70 now!). The estimate I saw at 65 was around $2,900, but by the time I actually filed last year, it had grown to $3,320 because of the COLAs during those waiting years. And those were some big COLA years with inflation! So YES, you definitely get the COLA increases even while you're waiting to file. Smart move waiting till 70!
0 coins
Nathan Kim
•That's really helpful to hear about your real experience! Those COLAs really added up for you. I'm hoping for decent COLAs in the next few years too, though I know they're tied to inflation which isn't always good for other aspects of retirement planning.
0 coins
Layla Sanders
While others have correctly pointed out that COLAs apply to your benefit calculation before claiming, it's also worth noting that the mySocialSecurity portal estimates might not perfectly reflect future COLAs. The estimates shown are calculated based on current dollars, and while they try to project growth, they can't predict actual COLA percentages for future years. Also, remember that the COLA for 2025 was 2.5%, which is lower than the unusual 8.7% and 3.2% we saw in 2023 and 2024. So when budgeting, you might want to use a conservative average like 2.3-2.5% for your planning calculations rather than counting on the higher recent adjustments.
0 coins
Morgan Washington
•exactly!!!! SSA can't predict future inflation so how can they know what COLAs will be?? my benefit estimate was WAY OFF because of the crazy inflation we had. ended up with $240 more per month than what they estimated 3 yrs earlier!
0 coins
Kaylee Cook
UGH trying to figure out ANYTHING with the SSA is so frustrating!!! I waited on hold for 2.5 HOURS last month trying to ask this EXACT question and got disconnected!!! Then went to the local office and they were closed for "staff training" or whatever excuse they use now. Why can't they make this info clear on their website????
0 coins
Kai Rivera
•I had the same frustrating experience trying to get through to SSA! I finally used a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me connected to an SSA agent in about 20 minutes instead of waiting for hours. They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU The agent confirmed exactly what others are saying here - COLAs absolutely do apply to your benefits even before you start collecting. The website should definitely make this clearer!
0 coins
Nathan Kim
Thanks everyone for the helpful responses! This community is amazing. So it sounds like I can expect my eventual benefit to be somewhat higher than what's currently showing on my Social Security statement, depending on what the COLA increases are over the next four years. That's good news for my retirement planning!
0 coins
Eleanor Foster
•Exactly right! And just one more thing to keep in mind - when planning, remember that your Social Security benefits might be subject to income tax depending on your other income sources in retirement. Depending on your total income, up to 85% of your SS benefits could be taxable. Just something to factor into your comprehensive retirement budget.
0 coins
Morgan Washington
my brother told me that the cola increases are only for people already getting benefits and that the ssa uses some wierd formula for everyone else but sounds like he was wrong!!!!
0 coins
Layla Sanders
•Your brother was confusing two different aspects of Social Security. The COLA is applied to everyone's PIA calculation annually, regardless of claiming status. What he might be thinking of is that the benefit formula itself is based on your 35 highest-earning years, and those past earnings are indexed for wage growth (not COLA) before calculating your initial benefit amount. It gets confusing because SSA uses different types of adjustments for different purposes!
0 coins