Your future Social Security benefit increases could be affected by which candidate wins the upcoming presidential election.

On Oct. 10, the Social Security Administration (SSA) dropped a bombshell by announcing that monthly benefits would be rising by 2.5% in 2025. That's a considerably lower cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, than 2024's 3.2% increase. And it's also the smallest Social Security COLA to arrive since 2021 when benefits rose by just 1.3%.

Now that the 2025 COLA increase has been announced by the Social Security Administration, here's what you need to know.

Retired workers in these 10 states will receive the largest cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in absolute dollars next year.

Social Security benefits are given a cost of living adjustment each year. The 2025 COLA increase is the smallest since 2021.

With the 2025 COLA announcement, the average Social Security check for individual retirees will increase from $1,927 per month to $1,976

The extent to which your monthly Social Security payments will increase in 2025 will hinge on a few factors. These include an official COLA number, whether you're enrolled in Medicare, and whether the cost of Part B rises in 2025.

In mid-October every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its much-anticipated report on changes (usually increases) to the Consumer Price Index over

Vice President Harris and former President Trump have both vowed to protect Social Security, but experts say both of their campaign platforms fall short of specific solutions for a program that faces threats to funding in roughly a decade.