President Donald Trump may talk down the inflation that has shadowed his second term, but senior advocacy groups argue the figures speak for themselves — especially when it comes to inflation-linked increases in Social Security payments.

"According to The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior advocacy group, Social Security's 2027 (Cost-of-Living Adjustment) is projected to reach 3.6 percent," reports Nasdaq.com's "Motley Fool" site. "If accurate, next year's raise would tie for the sixth-largest percentage increase since 1992."

Independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson, meanwhile, expects monthly payouts to rise by 3.4 percent.

"Regardless of which independent estimate is closer, it would represent the sixth consecutive year in which COLAs have met or surpassed 2.5 percent. The last time that happened was 30 years ago (1988-1997)," Motley Fool reports. "Suffice it to say, the puzzle pieces are falling in place for an outsize Social Security raise in 2027 to account for well-above-average inflation."

The annual COLA is not set by Congress or the White House but is calculated automatically from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), measured from the third quarter of one year to the third quarter of the next. The Social Security Administration typically announces the official figure in October, so the current projections from The Senior Citizens League and Johnson are early estimates that will firm up as more inflation data arrives.

Reporters attribute the inflation directly to Trump's policies, notwithstanding the president's denials. Two of the administration's policies are having a direct impact on consumer prices and pushing Social Security payouts higher in 2027: tariffs and war. According to Motley Fool, the Iran war is no longer merely an energy supply issue — rerouted shipments, altered supply chains, and higher costs for petroleum-based products are all raising expenses across the broader U.S. economy.

The strain lands on a retirement program that was already in "quite a bit of trouble," reports Nasdaq.

"According to the latest Social Security Board of Trustees Report, the program is staring down a long-term (75-year) unfunded obligation of $29.3 trillion, up more than $4 trillion from the previous year's report," Motley Fool stated.

That is not even the most pressing issue facing Social Security or its more than 71 million traditional recipients. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund, which pays monthly benefits to retired workers and survivors of deceased workers, is on track to exhaust its asset reserves by the fourth quarter of 2032. Under current law, once reserves are depleted the program can only pay benefits from ongoing payroll tax revenue, which the Trustees have projected would cover roughly three-quarters of scheduled benefits absent congressional action.

That timeline converts the Social Security problem from a distant "their problem" into an immediate "me problem" for retirees, the report notes, who now face the same uncertainty as their children.

All of this unfolds as Trump has earned between $1 billion and $2 billion from his position in his second term, which the report characterizes as the most extensive profiteering ever carried out by an American president. The report also states that Trump created a $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters, and that his children have used his foreign policy connections to profit from ventures ranging from Kazakhstan tungsten mines to an environmentally protected island in Albania.

According to the report, Trump and his supporters now also have designs on Social Security itself.