COLA Ledger

An independent reference — not affiliated with the Social Security Administration. Every figure traced to the government publication that produced it.

The 1975 Social Security COLA — 8.0%

Cost-of-living adjustment, 1975

8.0%

This adjustment took effect with benefits payable for June 1975, so it reached checks from July 1975.

Determined in
1975June-effective
First in a check
July 1975
Comparison quarter
Q1 1975CPI-W 52.7
Base quarter
Q2 1974CPI-W 48.8

SSA’s own table lists this adjustment under 1975, the year it was determined. This site uses the name people search for. Why the two labels disagree.

The CPI-W values behind the 8.0%

Every adjustment is an average of three monthly index readings against an average of three others. These are the six values, as the Bureau of Labor Statistics published them for series CWUR0000SA0 — all items, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted.

CPI-W monthly index values and quarterly averages behind the 1975 adjustment
QuarterMonthCPI-W index
Base — Q2 1974April 197448.300
May 197448.800
June 197449.300
Base quarter average48.8
Comparison — Q1 1975January 197552.400
February 197552.800
March 197553.000
Comparison quarter average52.7

The quarterly averages are rounded to the nearest tenth — the precision the determination-1975 notice specifies — and the percentage increase between them is then rounded to the nearest tenth of a percentage point. That gives 8.0%.

Reproduced from the raw index

Recomputing this adjustment from the committed CPI-W series returns 8.0%, matching SSA’s published figure. That check runs on all 51 determinations as a blocking build gate, so no page here can ship a figure the arithmetic does not support.

What 8.0% did to a benefit

Monthly benefit amounts are floored to the whole dollar after the adjustment is applied, which is why these figures are not simply the percentage multiplied out.

Effect of the 1975 adjustment on two benchmark monthly benefits
Monthly benefit beforeAfter the adjustmentMonthly increaseOver a year
$1,000$1,080+$80+$960
$2,000$2,160+$160+$1,920

The 1975 figures this adjustment set

Most Social Security parameters move with the adjustment or with the national average wage index. These are the committed values for 1975, each traced to the government table it came from.

Committed Social Security and Medicare parameters for 1975
Parameter1975
Maximum earnings subject to Social Security tax$14,100
SSI federal payment rate — individual$157.70
SSI federal payment rate — couple$236.60
Retirement earnings test — under full retirement age$2,520
Retirement earnings test — year of full retirement age$2,520
Substantial gainful activity — non-blind$200
Substantial gainful activity — blind$200
Trial work period — a service month$50

Where to go next

Sources and freshness

Figures effective June 1975. Page figures last verified against the sources above on 10 August 2026. BLS data retrieved 10 August 2026. BLS.gov cannot vouch for data or analyses derived from these data after retrieval. Corrections: the correction log · support@inventum.com.au