Some Social Security recipients will receive their October payment this week.
Benefits administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) are paid on a monthly basis. With tens of millions getting checks every month, payments are spread out across the calendar.
This week, those who have a birthday between the 11th and 20th of any given month in the year will be sent their payment. It is the second to last payment to be issued this month, with one more scheduled for next week on October 23.
Those who have a birthday earlier in the month should have already been paid on October 9. Payments for beneficiaries who have been claiming since before May 1997 and those who claim Supplemental Security Income (SSI) went out earlier this month.
If you have not received your monthly payment on the expected date, the SSA recommends waiting three working days before contacting the agency. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are not considered working days.
The amount of retirement benefit you receive depends on several factors, such as the age at which you begin claiming benefits and your earnings during your highest-paid working years.
In 2024, the maximum benefit of $4,873 is available only to individuals who retire at age 70. This amount is also influenced by their earnings during their most lucrative working years. If you choose to stop working and start claiming retirement benefits at the earliest possible age of 62, the maximum benefit you could receive would be $2,710.
All this is subject to change in the coming months, however, as benefit recipients found out last week how much their payments will be boosted by for 2025 due to the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), which will be 2.5 percent.
The 2.5 percent increase will mean a benefit recipient receiving $1,870 per month from SSA could see their monthly payment rise about $46.80 next year, according to independent Social Security and Medicare policy analyst Mary Johnson.
“The 2025 COLA will be the lowest received by Social Security beneficiaries since 2021, at the same time inflated prices persist on key essentials such as housing, meats, auto insurance, any type of service and repairs,” Johnson said in a statement to Newsweek.
“Despite it being the lowest COLA since 2021, a 2.5 percent COLA would be considered about average.”
The 2025 COLA was expected to be less than previous years, owing to inflation coming down throughout the year so far. Inflation has tracked downward from 3.7 percent in September last year to 2.3 percent this September this year.
The COLA for 2023 was the largest ever administered, with seniors receiving an 8.7 percent annual raise following a period of high inflation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which reached a high of 9.2 percent in 2022.
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