Two rounds of payments will hit bank accounts this week from the Social Security Administration (SSA).
Those receiving retirement benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) will both be paid this week, with the latter getting their monthly money slightly earlier than usual.
The final round of retirement checks, for those with birthdays falling between the 21st and 31st of any given month and who have not been claiming since before May 1997, will be the first to be sent out on Wednesday, August 28. This will be followed by the SSI payments, which will be made on August 30.
Usually, SSI payments are made on the first day of the month, but this changes whenever the usual payment date falls on a weekend. Given that September 1 falls on a Sunday, the SSA has brought the monthly payment date forward.
“We do this to avoid putting you at a financial disadvantage and make sure that you don’t have to wait beyond the first of the month to get your payment,” the SSA said in a 2022 blog post. “It does not mean that you are receiving a duplicate payment in the previous month, so you do not need to contact us to report the second payment.”
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The SSA advises waiting three working days before contacting the agency if your payment hasn’t arrived on the scheduled date.
The amount received by Social Security recipients varies because it is based on several factors such as the age at which benefits were claimed and the individual’s highest-earning years of work. Across all retired workers, the average benefit paid out in June 2024 was $1,869.77, according to data from the SSA.
The Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2025 is expected to be between 2.6 percent and 2.9 percent, with the latest prediction of the Senior Citizen’s League, a nonpartisan body, estimating 2.63 percent, while the financial advice website Motley Fool has predicted a slightly higher rise of 2.8 percent to 2.9 percent.
If so, it would be the lowest annual increase since 2021’s 1.3 percent adjustment. While this means inflation is cooling and prices are not rising as much as they have in recent years, it also means benefit claimants can expect to get a smaller boost than in recent years. In 2024, Social Security benefits increased by 3.2 percent. In 2023, a historic rise of 8.7 percent was granted to retirees and other benefit claimants because of runaway inflation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The next COLA update is set to be announced in October. While a specific date has not been confirmed, rates were announced on October 12 in 2022 and 2023.