Social Security recipients will get a raise in January - their first increase in benefits since 2009. It’s expected to be about 3.5 percent. Some 55 million beneficiaries will find out for sure today when a government inflation measure that determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment is released. Congress adopted the measure in the 1970s, and since then it has resulted in annual benefit increases averaging 4.2 percent. But there was no COLA in 2010 or 2011 because inflation was too low.