The 2026 COLA increase might be just 2.4%—the lowest in years. Here’s how shrinking Social Security raises housing risks for retirees.

The projection for Social Security's 2026 cost-of-living adjustment rose to 2.7% as inflation trends higher, as the program faces insolvency challenges in less than a decade.

In the beginning, the aims of Social Security were both noble and modest. “We have tried to frame a law,” said President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the signing of the Social Security Act, “which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.