Social Security checks are getting bigger starting in January, with the government confirming a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment for 2027 that will add roughly $75 to the average monthly retirement payment. More than 70 million people who rely on Social Security benefits will see the increase, alongside Supplemental Security Income recipients, who get their bump starting December 31. But the same announcement has reignited warnings from at least one senator that the program's main trust fund is on a faster track toward trouble.
A Modest Raise With a Familiar Purpose
The Social Security Administration announced the 2027 adjustment earlier this month, framing it as a way to help recipients keep pace with rising costs. As reported by MySA, the agency said the cost-of-living adjustment is meant to help recipients afford roughly the same amount of goods and services even as prices climb. Social Security Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano described the annual COLA as a way to ensure benefits reflect current economic realities and provide what he called a foundation of security, according to the same report. The increase applies to both the retirement and disability side of the program, which the Social Security Administration oversees under Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, as well as Supplemental Security Income.
For individual households, the math is straightforward: average retirement payments are expected to rise by about $75 per month once the adjustment takes effect in January, per the Social Security Administration's announcement cited by MySA. That is on top of whatever a beneficiary already receives, not a flat payment added to everyone's check equally.
Why a Bigger Raise Worries Some in Washington
Not everyone is treating the bigger check as unambiguously good news. Sen. Bill Cassidy told Fox Business that while the higher COLA reflects recent inflation, he believes it could drain Social Security's trust fund faster than currently projected. Cassidy acknowledged the adjustment is a response to real price increases, but warned the larger payout works against the fund's long-term solvency.
Cassidy estimated the trust fund could be depleted in about five and a half years. He told Fox Business that once that happens, the law calls for a 28.5% cut to benefits, unless Congress instead chooses to borrow heavily to keep full payments flowing. That framing — a mandated cut on one hand or new borrowing on the other — is the stark choice Cassidy has been laying out as a dividing line in the current debate.
What the Trustees Actually Project
The federal government's own long-range figures line up with part of Cassidy's warning, though not all of it. The Social Security retirement trust fund, known as OASI, may run out in the fourth quarter of 2032, according to CNBC. After that point, the trustees project that just 78% of scheduled benefits for that fund would still be payable. CNBC notes that more than 71 million Americans rely on Social Security retirement and disability benefits every month, underscoring the scale of what is at stake if that gap isn't addressed.
The picture shifts somewhat if the retirement and disability trust funds are combined, as they sometimes are in official projections. Under that combined scenario, the station's report states, depletion would move back to the third quarter of 2034, with 83% of scheduled benefits payable at that point. The Social Security Administration's own actuarial projections, separately, show that once combined trust fund reserves are depleted, continuing income would be sufficient to pay 83% of scheduled benefits for the remainder of 2034, a share the agency projects would decline to 65% by 2100. These OASI-only and combined-fund figures describe different scenarios and shouldn't be read as interchangeable.
Cassidy's Big Idea — and Its Skeptics
Cassidy has floated his own fix as he nears the end of his time in office. He has proposed having the federal government borrow $1.5 trillion over five years and place it in a separate investment fund, distinct from Social Security's existing trust funds, specifically to offset future shortfalls. Per the same CNBC account, Cassidy argues that fund, built on a diversified investment portfolio with strong guardrails, could grow over 65 to 70 years to cover 60% to 65% of Social Security's unfunded accrued liability.
That proposal has not gone unchallenged. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College reviewed Cassidy's plan and concluded it was unlikely to work without additional reforms, according to CNBC's reporting. Separately, legislative text tied to a Senate resolution on Social Security, posted on Congress.gov, specifies that any committee amendment to a Social Security bill would be out of order if it prevents the legislation from achieving long-term solvency for the trust funds, or if it fails to change Social Security's outlays, revenues, or financing altogether — a procedural guardrail aimed at forcing substantive fixes rather than cosmetic ones.
For now, the only certainty is the check arriving in January. Whether lawmakers settle on Cassidy's investment fund, some other reform, or no action at all before the trust fund's projected depletion date remains an open question in Washington.
