[hua7450]

What and why

G.S. 108A-42.1(a) and (b) adjust North Carolina's State-County Special Assistance basic and enhanced rates each January 1 "using the federally approved Social Security cost-of-living adjustment effective for the applicable year" (statute). That is SSA's announced percentage, rounded to a tenth: 3.6% for 2027 (SSA). The rate parameters were projecting 2027 from gov.ssa.uprating, whose unrounded CPI-W ratio is 3.62%, which put the basic rate a dollar high. Follow-up to Max's note on #10282.

Rate	2026	2027 (3.6% COLA)	Was (projected)
Basic (rate/basic.yaml)	1,397	1,447 (1,397 × 1.036 = 1,447.29)	1,448
Enhanced (rate/enhanced.yaml)	1,792	1,857 (1,792 × 1.036 = 1,856.51)	1,857

Applying each year's rounded COLA to the prior whole-dollar rate, starting from the statutory bases ($1,285 and $1,647, adjusted from January 1, 2024), reproduces both published 2026 rates: 1,285 → 1,326 → 1,359 → 1,397 and 1,647 → 1,700 → 1,743 → 1,792 (3.2%, 2.5%, 2.8%).

North Carolina has not yet published its 2027 rates, so the 2027 values are calculated from the statute and SSA's announced COLA. When the 2027 change notice appears (the 2026 one, EFS-SA-CN-01-2026, took effect January 1), it should be added to the parameters' references and the values checked against it.

• Parameters: explicit 2027-01-01 values for both rates, with SSA's 2027 COLA fact sheet added to their references. Later years still project from gov.ssa.uprating and rounding to the dollar until SSA announces each COLA; the metadata comment now says so.
• Tests: nc_sa.yaml Case 37 moves to 1,447 / 1,029 / 488 (1,447 + 70 − 1,029), and nc_sa_rate.yaml gains Case 8 for the 2027 enhanced rate (1,857).

Test plan

• For policy changes: expected values follow the statute's rule with SSA's announced 2027 COLA (3.6%) and FBR ($1,029).
• make format
• Changelog fragment in changelog.d/

axiom: N.C.G.S. 108A-42.1(a)-(b) TheAxiomFoundation/rulespec-us#1779 queued

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