Millions of Social Security recipients will be getting their monthly payment today, and it could be worth up to $4,873.
Monthly retirement and disability benefits issued by the Social Security Administration (SSA) are provided to retired Americans, individuals with disabilities, and surviving family members of deceased claimants. With some 67 million people on the SSA payroll, not every claimant receives their money on the same date each month.
Payments will be distributed today, Wednesday, June 12, to those born between the first and 10th of any given month in the year who have not been claiming Social Security since before 1997 and do not also receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
If you do not get your scheduled payment for whatever reason, the SSA advises waiting three working days before contacting them.
This month, the distribution schedule for payments has changed slightly. Typically, the first round of Social Security payments for this category is made in the second week of the month. However, in June, these payments are being made in the third week, which began on Monday, June 10.
Since June 2024 began on a Saturday, the payment was moved to the third week of the month. Although it might seem like recipients are waiting longer than usual for their regular payment, this is not true. Those with birthdays in the first 10 days of the month are always paid on the second Wednesday.
While such changes are infrequent, according to the SSA’s payment schedule, third-week payments are also planned for August and November this year.
Only a select number of Social Security recipients will get the maximum monthly amount of $4,873. How much you are paid is calculated by a number of factors, including the number of years you have worked throughout your life and how much you were paid. The average monthly retirement benefit paid to claimants in January 2024 was $1,907.
Seniors hoping for a boost to their Social Security payments will have to wait until next year when the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) comes in. Federal benefits are raised every year in line with inflation, calculated based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W).
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 due to skyrocketing inflation during and following the coronavirus pandemic. How much benefits will increase by in 2025 won’t be revealed until October, but the most-recent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is a 2.5 percent rise.