Boosting Benefits and COLAs for Seniors Act
Sponsored By: Representative Budzinski
Introduced
Summary
Tie annual Social Security and related benefit increases to whichever price index grows more: the standard CPI-W or a senior-focused CPI-E. This bill would make cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) use the higher annual change between those two indexes and set rules for transition and publication of the senior index.
Show full summary
- Seniors and beneficiaries under Title II, Title VIII, and Title XVI: Could receive larger annual COLAs when the senior price index (CPI-E) rises faster than the standard index. This changes how benefit increases are calculated.
- People receiving Supplemental Security Income and other payments tied to COLAs: Those annual adjustments would follow the same higher-index rule so linked benefits move with the new COLA measure.
- Recipients with pre-1979 benefit rules: The bill updates legacy computations, including a requirement that the higher index exceed the other by at least 3 percentage points for certain legacy checks and adjusts a 2.5 percent threshold to reference CPI-W or CPI-E.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics and transition: The bill requires monthly publication of CPI-E and says references to CPI-E use an interim RCPI-E series until BLS issues CPI-E.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
2 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
Social Security COLAs tied to senior prices
If enacted, yearly cost-of-living raises for Social Security and SSI would use the higher of two inflation measures: CPI-W or CPI-E. The 3% and 2.5% trigger tests would still apply, but they would use whichever index is higher. BLS would publish a new monthly CPI-E; until then, the research R-CPI-E would stand in. Social Security would also make technical cross-reference updates so the new rules are applied correctly. These changes would first apply to COLAs based on computation quarters ending on or after September 30, 2026.
Other benefits would not use higher COLA
If enacted, other federal laws that tie increases to the Social Security COLA would not use the bill’s higher COLA. They would act as if the old COLA formula still applied. This would start for COLAs tied to computation quarters ending on or after September 30, 2026.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Budzinski
IL • D
Cosponsors
Frankel, Lois
FL • D
Sponsored 10/28/2025
Magaziner
RI • D
Sponsored 10/28/2025
Del. Norton, Eleanor Holmes [D-DC-At Large]
DC • D
Sponsored 11/25/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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