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Yuki Kawamura delighted his Pacers teammates with his performances and will to win. He now takes those traits to the LA Clippers.

With the Social Security Administration’s 2027 cost-of-living adjustment announcement just weeks away, retirees are entering the last stretch of 2026 with a raise that has already been outrun by the forces working against it.

The 2.8% COLA that took effect in January lifted the average retired worker’s monthly benefit from roughly $2,015 to $2,071 in the SSA’s initial estimate.

The actual average has since climbed further. As of July 2026, the average retired-worker benefit stood at $2,085.98, according to the SSA’s Monthly Statistical Snapshot.

Medicare premiums surged past the raise, inflation caught up by spring, and the tax code and a decade of eroded purchasing power are still working against the check.

For the 44% of retirees who depend on Social Security for their entire income, according to the Senior Citizens League, the headline amount is only part of the story. What survives deductions and rising costs determines whether the check actually covers the bills.

Medicare’s 9.7% premium hike consumed nearly a third of the raise

The standard Part B premium rose to $202.90 a month in 2026, a $17.90 increase from $185, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced. 

Even against the higher July average of $2,085.98, the Part B premium still represents 9.7% of the monthly check.

The jump ranks as the second-highest Part B premium increase in program history, trailing only the $21.60 rise in 2022, independent Social Security analyst Mary Johnson told Yahoo Finance.

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Part B premiums are deducted directly from Social Security checks before each deposit arrives. That means $17.90 of the average $56 raise, roughly 32%, vanished before it reached a single bank account.

The Part B annual deductible also climbed $26, from $257 to $283, adding another layer of out-of-pocket cost before coverage begins. 

As a share of the average annual Social Security benefit, Part B premiums reached an all-time high of 9.4% in 2026, the Boston College Center for Retirement Research reported.

Purchasing power erosion sits behind 2026 Social Security raise

The 2026 adjustment arrived against a longer backdrop of declining real value. Benefits have shed 13.7% of their purchasing power since 2016, the Senior Citizens League concluded in its 2026 Loss of Buying Power study.

The problem is structural. The Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), which sets the annual adjustment, tracks working-age spending, the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed. 

Retirees spend disproportionately on healthcare, a category that consistently outpaces broad inflation. An alternative index, the CPI-E, designed to reflect elderly spending patterns, has been proposed for years but never adopted.

The tax code compounds the problem, dragging more retirees into taxable-benefit territory with every cost-of-living raise.

The provisional income thresholds, $25,000 for single filers and $32,000 for joint filers, have not changed since 1984, according to the SSA.

Above those levels, up to 50% of benefits become taxable; above $34,000 for single filers and $44,000 for joint filers, up to 85% do.

Because the thresholds never move but benefits do, each COLA pushes more retirees into taxable-benefit territory, enlarging tax bills as it lifts checks.

“Our research shows that the average senior gets by on less than $2,000 a month,” Shannon Benton, the Senior Citizens League’s executive director, noted in a statement to 401(k) Specialist.

Social Security’s 2026 raise may look helpful, but years of inflation and unchanged tax thresholds continue eroding retirees’ purchasing power.Maskot / Getty Images

Inflation has outrun the 2.8% adjustment since spring 2026

The 2.8% raise was calculated using third-quarter 2025 price data, but inflation has since exceeded that level. The CPI-W rose 3.4% year over year in July 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. 

Retirees have been absorbing price increases faster than their benefits grew since March, when annual inflation reached 3.3%.

Among categories that weigh heaviest on older households, the mismatch is starker. Outpatient hospital care costs climbed 5.8% year over year through July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

Douglas Ornstein, a TIAA Wealth Management director, warned in comments to Forbes Advisor that small annual gaps between benefit increases and actual costs compound fast.

“Some critical costs, healthcare in particular, have risen faster than 2.8% over the past year, which means the purchasing power of that benefit continues to erode over time,” Ornstein said.

For retirees on fixed incomes, even modest gaps between their cost of living and their benefit adjustments can compound meaningfully over a long retirement.

The lag is built into the formula itself, since every cost-of-living adjustment reflects the previous year’s prices.

2027 Social Security COLA projection points to familiar tradeoff

The Senior Citizens League now projects a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment for 2027, which would add roughly $75 a month to the average check.

Johnson estimates 3.4%, AARP forecasts 3.5%, and the Social Security Administration will announce the official figure on Oct. 14, 2026.

A larger raise would provide some relief, but Medicare costs are projected to climb again. The 2026 Medicare Trustees Report projects the standard Part B premium at $209.50 for 2027, a 3.25% increase. 

Private forecasters estimate the actual 2027 premium at $216 to $219, citing a pattern of Trustees underestimating final costs in recent years, 24/7 Wall St reported.

If the premium lands at the higher end of that range, the gap between the raise and the deduction narrows considerably.

Where the 2027 COLA leaves retirees before it arrives

The October 14 announcement will confirm whether the 2027 raise clears the projected Part B premium, a spread as narrow as $6 a month if forecasters are right. 

Each COLA continues to lift more retirees across the 1984-era taxation thresholds, expanding tax bills even as it lifts checks. 

Medicare Open Enrollment runs from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, 2026, the annual window when 2027 premiums become available for Medicare Advantage and Original Medicare plans. 

In households for which Social Security is the sole income source, the gap between benefit adjustments and healthcare inflation can be significant. That gap may determine whether supplemental income becomes necessary.

Related: 2027 Social Security COLA: These 3 Months Will Decide Your Raise

The longest domestic flight that one can take in the U.S. changes periodically depending on the time of year and whether certain airlines are running routes that are flashy but not always bringing in the traffic that justify keeping them.

Since Delta Air Lines first started running the 5,095-mile trip between Boston Logan (BOS) and Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) in Honolulu in November 2024, it has ended up cutting and bringing it back three times by 2026 due to lower demand outside the colder sun-seeking months when more people are looking to go Hawaii.

After stopping the flight in February 2026, Delta is now bringing it back on Dec. 19 but only for a few weeks. This week, the airline confirmed to several outlets that it will run this route for the last time on Jan. 5, 2027 instead of continuing it until March as originally planned.

Delta to cut its Boston-Honolulu flight two months earlier than planned

After running it during the peak holiday travel period, Delta will end its Boston-Honolulu service indefinitely.

The flight from Boston to Honolulu takes approximately 11 hours and 40 minutes while, due to jet streams blowing west to east, the return flight back to Boston runs significantly shorter at nine hours and 40 minutes.

Related: Now is the time to plan a fall leaf-peeping trip from NYC

Delta confirmed that it will phase out the route once several news outlets broke the story and said that anyone who booked tickets after Jan. 3 in the expectation that the flight will be running will be able to rebook or request a full refund to the original method of payment.

Delta and Hawaiian Airlines both fly to Honolulu from JFK while cutting their Boston service.Shutterstock

“We apologize for any inconvenience”: Delta on cut Boston-Honolulu flight

“Delta routinely evaluates and adjusts our network to best meet customer demand,” the airline said in a statement to aviation website Simple Flying. “As a result, Delta will end service between Boston (BOS) and Honolulu (HNL) effective Jan. 5, 2027. We apologize for any inconvenience and will contact impacted customers directly with alternate travel options.”

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For those traveling from the Northeast, Delta continues to run a nearly-as-long flight to Honolulu from New York’s JFK Airport year-round.

The proximity of the city to Boston, as well as Delta’s vast network of flights to Honolulu from other U.S. cities, makes for a relatively easy connection while the market of those looking to fly from Boston directly evidently did not live up to the airline’s original estimates.

The NYC-Honolulu flight is, at 4,983 miles and approximately 11 hours heading west, just slightly shorter than the cut Boston one. It is now also the longest domestic flight in Delta’s network and in the U.S. across two airlines running it. Hawaiian Airlines also flies a year-round flight between New York and Honolulu (before getting acquired by Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines flew to Honolulu from Boston as well but ended up cutting the route over similar concerns of low demand relative to the cost of putting planes and fuel toward it).

Related: Another airline shuts down, cancels all flights due to low demand

“I paid a significant amount into Social Security.”

As U.S. stocks head into September, a key trading level suggests the S&P 500 could dodge a big loss in what is historically a turbulent month.

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The energy and technology sectors did well in August, while Moderna’s stock was the best performer by a wide margin.

Corporate takeovers that collapse usually leave the acquirer with nothing to show for the effort. GameStop Corp. (GME) just found the exception.

The retailer’s rejected $56 billion bid for eBay Inc. (EBAY) left it holding a stake that is now carrying its entire earnings story, even as its core video game business keeps shrinking.

GameStop said in an Aug. 31 press release that it expects preliminary second-quarter net income between $290 million and $310 million, nearly double the $168.6 million it earned a year earlier.

Net sales are projected to fall to between $780 million and $800 million from $972.2 million. The company attributed this decline to store closure, the divestiture of its France operations, and a tough comparison against last year’s Nintendo Switch 2 launch.

The profit did not come from selling more games. About $238 million of the gain came from converting GameStop’s eBay derivative position into 43.4 million shares of eBay stock, now worth roughly $4.9 billion.

That was partly offset by a $75 million loss on digital assets and related receivables, the company said in the same release.

A failed $56B bid is paying off anyway

That eBay position is not spare change sitting on the balance sheet. It is the residue of CEO Ryan Cohen’s unsolicited offer to purchase eBay outright in May, which eBay’s board rejected as “neither credible nor attractive” according to according to Bloomberg.

Cohen kept buying the stocks anyway, pushing GameStop’s stake toward 9.75% by mid-July, making it eBay’s second-largest shareholder behind Vanguard’s index funds.

Related: GameStop just cleared a hurdle nobody was watching

The accounting from that pursuit is now doing more for GameStop’s bottom line than its roughly 1,600 stores are doing for it.

It’s an unusual outcome for a deal Wall Street mostly dismissed as a long shot. It means this quarter’s headline profit number says more about eBay’s stock price than about GameStop’s retail turnaround.

GameStop is also reshaping $1.4B in debt

GameStop revised the terms of a separate debt exchange the same morning. Noteholders will now receive about 55.5 million shares and $358.4 million in cash, funded from cash on hand, according to a regulatory filing.

The original deal, announced in August, would have settled the entire $1.4 billion in stock, with share count tied to GameStop’s trading price over a 35-day window.

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Cutting that stock-only structure short means fewer new shares hit the market now. The timing lines up with a separate GameStop ambition: shareholders voted in July to authorize up to 2.5 billion new Class A shares specifically to fund a bigger stock component of a future eBay bid.

Trimming today’s dilution preserves more of that pool, whether GameStop revives its takeover or settles for the joint venture Bloomberg has reported Cohen is now weighing.

Other figures worth watching

Collectibles and trading cards made up 41.8% of GameStop’s first-quarter revenue, up from 28.9% a year earlier, showing retail strength independent of the eBay stake.

About $2.8 billion of the original convertible notes will remain outstanding once the revised exchange closes around Sept. 3, per the filing.

GME shares rose roughly 4% in premarket trading Monday after the earnings news.

Complete second-quarter results, which may include an update on the eBay pursuit, are due September 8.

GameStop’s Q2 profit surged on eBay stake gains from its rejected takeover bid.Brandon Bell / Getty Images

What this means beyond GameStop

GameStop’s quarter is a preview of a pattern investors will likely see more often.

Companies that build large equity stakes ahead of a takeover attempt, rather than walking away when rejected, end up carrying that position’s market swings straight into their own earnings.

The stake becomes a second business investors have to value and monitor separately from the one the company actually runs.

GameStop’s Sept. 8 report will show whether the retail turnaround is real on its own terms.

Until then, owning this stock is only partly a bet on video games that is slowly going out of fashion. It is also a bet on how a takeover nobody expected to happen keeps finding new ways to pay off.

Related: The eBay deal Ryan Cohen swore he wanted is falling apart

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the historic preservationists who sought to block the project.

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With the arrival of the fall months, many people struggle to find the perfect balance with their bedding. Summer requires lightweight bedcovers that won’t stifle. Wintertime demands thick comforters to keep you warm and cozy. Autumn, however, must walk a fine line between the two. You don’t want to feel like you’re freezing with a lightweight blanket but also need to stay warm enough for the occasional evening chill. That’s why a lightweight comforter is the perfect option for your falltime slumber. Add a good dehumidifier and a portable speaker, and you’ll have the perfect sleeping environment all the way through the holiday shopping season.

Thankfully, Amazon has some of the best bedding items available, especially in the run-up to the holidays. As luck would have it, the online giant is currently selling one of its most complete bedding sets at a big discount, and it may be the ultimate falltime offer. If you think you could use a new bedding set for the remaining months of the year, then we recommend you take a look at this fabulous bedding.

Cozylux 7-Piece Lightweight Comforter Set

Courtesy of Amazon

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The Cozylux 7-Piece Lightweight Comforter Set includes everything you could possibly need for a bedding refresh. It comes with a lightweight comforter, a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, and four matching pillowcases. The ultra-soft microfiber down-alternative comforter is fully machine washable, as is the rest of the set. Each piece can also be tumble dried on the low setting, which will have everything coming out looking and feeling new. There is box-stitching throughout the comforter as well, to ensure that the filling doesn’t bunch up at any specific parts of the blanket.

Benefits of a lightweight down-alternative comforter 

There are a few primary advantages of owning a down-alternative comforter like this one. Those are allergen resistance, breathability, and price. Down-alternative comforters resist dust and pollen, which means they’re a hypoallergenic material. This type of bedcover is wonderful for people who suffer from airborne allergies. The worst thing that can happen when you lay down for a good night’s sleep is an allergy attack, so down-alternative is one of the best possible types of comforter for avoiding this issue.

Speaking exclusively about this time of year, lightweight down-alternative comforters are exceptionally breathable. As mentioned above, the temperature can change on a dime during the fall months, so having a blanket that allows your body temperature to adapt as needed is invaluable. Breathability in a bedcover means you can expect a reasonable amount of airflow to pass through the fabric, keeping your body well-regulated when there’s a rise in ambient temperature.

Affordability is one of the key aspects of a lightweight down-alternative comforter. Because it’s not made from genuine down, a comforter that’s made from alternative materials keeps manufacturing costs low. That allows sellers to pass those savings on to the consumer, which we all could use these days. Furthermore, most lightweight down-alternative comforters, including the one we shared above, are made with environmentally friendly materials that are safe to have in the home and nontoxic.

More lightweight comforter sets

If the Cozylux 7-Piece Lightweight Comforter Set doesn’t look like it’s for you, don’t fret. Amazon has lots of other options in the way of complete bedcover sets. Below is a list of some of our favorites. Peruse it at your leisure, and we’re sure you’ll find at least one set that can suit your needs for this time of year and beyond.

Easthome 7-Piece Lightweight Matching Comforter Set

Courtesy of Amazon

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Muxhomo All-Season Lightweight Comforter Set

Courtesy of Amazon

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Cozylux 7-Piece Down Alternative Comforter Set

Courtesy of Amazon

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Sweet Home Collection Microfiber 7-Piece Comforter Set

Courtesy of Amazon

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