One little-known but extremely valuable aspect of Social Security is that the benefits that it pays out are adjusted for inflation. That means that throughout the course of your retirement years, you can anticipate that your monthly Social Security check will rise gradually in order to keep up with the rising cost of living and help you sustain the purchasing power of your benefits.

However, as some Social Security recipients learned for the first time this year, Social Security payments don't always go up. Below, we'll look more closely at what causes benefits to rise and why you can't count on getting a raise every single year.