About 72.5 million Americans get their money from Social Security checks. About 65 million people, or almost all of them, get their only income from Social Security. The rest get either SSI benefits or benefits from both Social Security and SSI.
The program helps millions of poor old and disabled people get out of poverty by giving them money every month. When figuring out these Social Security checks, the Social Security Administration (SSA) looks at how much the person has earned in the past and how old they are when they start getting checks.
The average payment changes every month, but only slightly. This is because every month, new recipients join the program as the dead are taken off the rolls. Even though no one knows what the usual payment will be this fall, there are some warning signs.
The average benefit increase in Social Security checks to retirees will change in the fall
We’d like to show you an average monthly payment for all individual receivers, including Social Security and SSI, starting in May and going through the last three months. This will help you understand how the Social Security checks have been changing. The Social Security Administration has not yet released its August data snapshot, which is something that should be kept in mind.
- May 2024: $1,917
- June 2024: $1,781.07
- July 2024: $2,507
The Hill says that the average payout went down in June because of a problem with the SSA’s calendar. Many beneficiaries didn’t get their payment that month until early July, which made July’s average go up sharply but not naturally. There are a lot of administrative factors that make it hard to know with any degree of accuracy what the average payment will be in the future.
However, the mean doesn’t change so much from month to month very often. The SSA can’t say what the usual payments will be in the future, but the big changes in late spring and summer were caused by a very rare mistake in the calendar at the end of the month.
Because the scheduled payment date fell on a weekend, this situation moved the payment for one month into the next. In the fall, payments will likely go back to being more like the average of about $2,068.33 over three months, but that is the exception.
If you get Social Security checks now, remember that the amount you got in January will not change in the fall or at any other time in 2024. But it will almost certainly change in 2025.
Beneficiaries should expect a modest increase in their Social Security checks for 2025
Since the middle of the 1970s, the SSA has used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index to figure out its yearly cost of living adjustments (COLAs). Only in very rare cases do COLAs not raise the next year’s Social Security payment.
This is done to help people keep up with inflation. To give you an example, the 2022 COLA raised payouts by 5.9%. It went up to 8.7% in 2023, which was the biggest jump in 40 years, and inflation hit its highest level in forty years. It went down to 3.2% this year as prices went down.
Recent economic data shows that the inflation rate is slowly going down. It fell below 3% for the first time since prices started going up, which brings it closer to the Federal Reserve’s long-term goal of 2%. Still, this is a two-edged sword for retired people who get a set salary.
Many people will be able to get by with less money because prices are going up more slowly, but they should also expect a lower cost of living increase in 2025. The official number from the SSA won’t be released until later this year. In August, the Senior Citizens League changed its July estimate of a 2.63% COLA to a more likely 2.57% COLA in 2025.