Veterans who receive disability benefits from the VA may rely on those payments to help make ends meet, especially if they have severe disabilities that affect their ability to work. However, inflation can slowly erode the value of disability pay. Fortunately, the VA applies annual COLA increases to disability benefits in most years to ensure that the purchasing power of benefits keeps up with inflation so that veterans do not experience an effective reduction in their disability pay. But what increase can veterans expect to see for their disability benefits in 2026?
Understanding COLAs (Cost-of-Living Adjustments)
Under federal law, the VA must impose a COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) on disability benefits equal to the COLA that the Social Security Administration applies to Social Security disability and retirement benefits. The COLA helps offset the effects of inflation on monthly financial benefits from the government, ensuring that the money that a disability benefits recipient gets goes just as far as it did the previous year and every year before that.
The Expected 2026 Increase
Advocacy groups project that the Social Security Administration will announce a 2.7 percent COLA for federal benefits in 2026. The Social Security Administration will announce the 2026 COLA sometime in mid-October 2025. The COLA will go into effect for benefits paid starting January 2026.
How the SSA Determines the Increase
The Social Security Administration determines the annual COLA based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) as calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in September preceding the Social Security Administration’s announcement of the following year’s COLA. Experts and advocacy groups who project the following year’s COLA increase base their projections on CPI-W data from earlier in the year. However, economic changes during the year can cause the final COLA number to differ.
What Increases Mean for Veterans
Should the 2026 COLA increase end up at 2.7 percent, veterans will see a 2.7 percent increase in all their VA disability benefits starting with the January monthly payment. The increase will apply to all disability pay, including base monthly benefits, monthly benefits for additional minor children or children in qualifying school programs, and benefits for spouses receiving aid and attendance.
Although COLAs help mitigate the effects of inflation on VA disability benefits, various expenses that veterans incur may see increases that outpace the annual COLA announced by the Social Security Administration, including housing, healthcare, and energy.
What Veterans Should Do
Veterans can prepare for next year’s COLA increase to disability benefits by monitoring official announcements from the Social Security Administration and the VA starting in mid-October when the government finalized the 2026 COLA figure. Following the announcement, the VA will publish the 2026 benefit rates on its website, allowing veterans to see the amount of monthly payment they can expect to receive next year. Veterans can use these official figures to begin planning their budgets for 2026. However, veterans should remain mindful of rises in prices above the 2.7 percent figure for various ordinary expenses like housing and healthcare.
Beginning with the January 2026 payment, veterans should review their pay statement to ensure they receive the correct increased amount. Should a veteran receive an incorrect benefit amount, they can contact the VA to seek correction or consult a VA disability lawyer to discuss their legal options.
Contact a VA Disability Attorney Today
When you receive VA disability benefits, you need to keep track of the annual changes to disability pay to understand how they may affect your monthly benefits. Contact Coskrey Law today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a VA disability benefits lawyer to learn more about the expected 2026 COLA increases in VA benefits and how they may affect your disability pay next year.