(NEXSTAR) – What kind of bump can Social Security beneficiaries expect in 2026? A new projection from the Senior Citizens League expects a modest one — if indeed the data they’re interpreting is accurate.

The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) is a nonpartisan senior advocacy group aiming to educate older Americans about laws, rights and financial issues facing their demographic in retirement. The organization is also known for its accurate projections of upcoming Social Security increases — or cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) — which are determined annually by the Social Security Administration.

The Social Security Administration’s COLA is designed to help Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients retain their buying power amid rising inflation. These increases, which are issued annually, are determined using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and its Consumer Price Index (CPI), which itself is a measure of the change in prices for common consumer goods and services.

Based on current data from the latest CPI, The Senior Citizens League estimates a 2.5% bump for Social Security recipients in 2026, which is slightly higher than the 2.4% projected last month.

But the group is also warning of potential “problems” with recent BLS data, pointing to reports of hiring freezes and staffing shortages. These issues have resulted in the collection of “less accurate” CPI data, and may result in seniors getting shortchanged come 2026, TSCL argues.

“If the government fails to act and the CPI’s data quality begins to erode, it increases the likelihood of the government providing a COLA that doesn’t match inflation,” the group writes.

Last week, the BLS indeed admitted that it had stopped collecting data for its indexes in three cities: Lincoln, Nebraska; Provo, Utah; and Buffalo, New York. It was also “reducing sample areas across the country” when collecting data related to inflation.

The agency said that it “temporarily reduced the number of outlets and quotes it attempted to collect due to a staffing shortage” beginning in April. The reduced data collection “will be kept in place until the hiring freeze is lifted,” according to an email viewed by the Associated Press.

The inflation data plays a huge role in the U.S. economy. Not only is it used to calculate the annual COLA adjustments for tens of millions of Social Security recipients, but it also helps determine the interest rate paid in about $2 trillion of inflation-adjusted Treasury bonds. Many private-sector wages are also influenced by the CPI.

“While streamlining the federal government is a good thing, that shouldn’t involve cutting back on our ability to measure how our economy is changing,” said TSCL executive director Shannon Benton in a news release. “Inaccurate or unreliable data in the CPI dramatically increases the likelihood that seniors receive a COLA that’s lower than actual inflation, which can cost seniors thousands of dollars over the course of their retirement.”

Aside from concerns over the Bureau of Labor’s data collection, TSCL has long argued that COLA increases in recent years have failed to keep up with rising costs for seniors, claiming that the CPI-W does not accurately reflect the spending habits of older adults.

A 2025 survey of seniors receiving Social Security benefits also indicated that most spend over 1,000 per month on healthcare costs alone. They also estimated that their own costs had risen higher than 3% over the last year — well over the 2.5% suggested by the latest CPI data.

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Labor Statistics has said the collection cutbacks will have “have minimal impact” on its consumer price indexes, “but they may increase the volatility of subnational or item-specific indexes.”

“BLS will continue to evaluate survey operations,” the agency writes.

The amount of next year’s COLA increase, however, won’t be officially announced by the Social Security Administration until October. The 2026 increase will also be based on BLS data from the upcoming third quarter (July, August and September) of 2025.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.