A Spousal Social Security Benefit Will Get the Full 3.6% COLA in 2027, but It Still Caps at Half Your Spouse’s Benefit

Your Social Security payment is getting a larger cost-of-living boost, but spousal benefits follow their own rules. Delaying won’t increase that check, and building a retirement plan around it alone could leave you short.

Many seniors are looking forward to the next Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. Benefits are scheduled to rise by 3.6%, a sharper increase than the 2.8% COLA that took effect in the prior year. It is also the biggest Social Security COLA in several years.

If you receive Social Security spousal benefits, you may be wondering whether your monthly payments also qualify for a COLA. The answer is yes. When the adjustment takes effect, your spousal benefit should increase by 3.6%, just like benefits paid on a worker’s own record.

Still, it’s important to understand that spousal benefits have limits. Even though they receive annual COLAs, the amount you can collect is capped. If your retirement strategy depends on one spousal benefit alone, you may want to reconsider.

Spousal benefits come with a strict ceiling

For people claiming Social Security based on their own earnings record, there is a strong reason to wait beyond full retirement age, or FRA. For those born in 1960 or later, FRA is 67, and each year of delay after that point, up to age 70, increases benefits by 8%.

That delayed retirement credit does not apply to spousal benefits. If you claim on a current or former spouse’s record, the most you can receive is 50% of that spouse’s primary insurance amount, or the benefit they would get at FRA.

You can receive the full spousal amount if you file at FRA, but waiting longer will not raise it.

The check you first receive is not necessarily fixed forever, though. As with other Social Security benefits, spousal benefits get an annual COLA, so the payment can rise gradually over time.

And if you qualify for spousal benefits and your spouse dies before you do, the Social Security Administration will generally convert those payments to survivor benefits. Survivor benefits are equal to 100% of your current or former spouse’s benefit.

Know the rules before you count on the money

Social Security benefits are not all governed by the same rules, so it helps to understand how spousal benefits work before making retirement decisions.

It is also worth remembering that spousal benefits are limited. If you are claiming on an ex-spouse’s record, that monthly payment by itself is unlikely to cover all of your expenses. In that case, you should have other income available, such as withdrawals from retirement savings or earnings from a job, so you are not left in financial trouble.

Relying on spousal benefits may be more workable if you are married, since your spouse may also be collecting a separate Social Security benefit. But if you are single in retirement, you should not expect a spousal benefit alone to be enough.