The Social Security Administration (SSA) is getting ready to send out the last round of August payouts as summer comes to an end. This week, some groups of beneficiaries will get their checks. These groups include retired Social Security workers, people who get Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and people who get Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).
The SSA has set up a schedule that gives most of the money to people based on their birth dates so that payments are given out more quickly.
In real life, this means that people born between January 1st and October 10th get their payments on the second Wednesday of each month, people born between November 11th and October 20th get their payments on the third Wednesday, and people born between October 21st and October 31st get their payments on the fourth Wednesday.
This plan, however, doesn’t apply to everyone. For example, it doesn’t apply to people who retired before May 1997 or to people who get SSI payments, since those people get their money on the first of the month, which can make it hard to follow if you don’t know the SSA’s calendar.
For August, the SSA sent the right funds to people who were born between August 11th and August 20th on the third Wednesday of the month, as planned. Based on a number of factors that will be talked about later, these people are likely to have gotten an average payment of $1,900.
After this, the last payments for August will be sent out on Wednesday, August 28th, to people born between July 21st and August 31st, and on Friday, August 30th, to people who are getting SSI payments for the month of September.
This is because the 1st of the month, which is usually when payments are sent out, falls on a weekend, so the payment had to be sent out earlier so that people wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough money. It can also happen on national holidays, and in those cases, the payments are pushed back to the last day that banks are available.
Keep in mind that the exact amount that each program recipient gets may change for a number of reasons, especially for retired workers. These include how many years the person worked, how much Social Security tax they paid all their working life, and the age at which they chose to retire.
How much money does Social Security distribute?
The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides official estimates tables to help recipients check their own situations and get a better idea of how much they will get in Social Security payments. As you can see from these tables, retired workers usually get the biggest average payments compared to other recipients.
In July, for example, the average payment for widow benefits was $1,509.50. The average payment for retired workers’ spouses and children was $910 and $892.39, respectively.
As of 2024, all payments to retired workers went up by 3.2% due to the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). As a result, the average monthly payment for a single retiree was about $1,907, and the average monthly payment for a married couple filing jointly may have been about $3,303.
People who get SSI, on the other hand, get an average of $943 a month for people and $1,415 a month for couples.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) changes these payments every year to keep up with inflation rates. This way, beneficiaries don’t lose buying power when inflation is high.
This method of making changes, called the COLA, is very important for making sure that Social Security payments stay valuable over time. The COLA raise for 2024 was 3.2%. The exact number for the next year should be released in the middle of October.