With consumer prices down over the past year, monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for nearly 65 million Americans will not automatically increase in 2016, the Social Security Administration announced last week.

The Social Security Act provides for an automatic increase in Social Security and SSI benefits if there is an increase in inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. The period of consideration includes the third quarter of the last year a cost-of-living adjustment was made to the third quarter of the current year.

But the Bureau of Labor Statistics found no increase in the Consumer Price Index from the third quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of 2015 and therefore no cost-of-living adjustment.

In other words, if prices don’t increase, Social Security benefits stay flat. It happened in 2010 and 2011, and now again in 2016.

Other adjustments that normally would take effect based on changes in the national average wage index also will not take effect in January 2016. Since there is no cost-of-living adjustment, the statute also prohibits a change in the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax, as well as the retirement earnings test exempt amounts. These amounts will remain unchanged in 2016.

The Department of Health and Human Services has not yet announced Medicare premium changes for 2016. Should there be an increase in the Medicare Part B premium, the law contains a “hold harmless” provision that protects about 70 percent of Social Security beneficiaries from paying a higher Part B premium, in order to avoid reducing their net Social Security benefit.

Information about Medicare changes for 2016, when available, are found at www.medicare.gov.

For additional information, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/cola.