Social Security Benefits Increase Soon: Here’s When They Arrive

Blank U.S. Treasury checks are run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia, Pa., on July 18, 2011. (William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)

Retired Americans who receive Social Security benefits and those who get Supplemental Security Income payments will soon see their benefits increase in just a few weeks.

The cost-of-living adjusted (COLA) Social Security payment will be sent out starting on Jan. 10, 2024, according to a schedule of payments.  Recipients with a birth date will get their payment on the first to the 10th of a month, the second group to get the payment are those born on the 11th to 20th of a month and will get them on Jan. 17, and the third group gets their payment on Jan. 24 if they’re born on the 21st to 31st.

Those who started getting Social Security payments prior to May 1997 have their payments distributed on Jan. 24.

Recipients of SSI will see their first adjusted payment sent out on Dec. 29, 2023, according to the schedule. The payment is being sent in late December because Jan. 1 is a federal holiday, meaning that the government pays benefits on the first non-holiday weekday before a regular payment date.

Social Security recipients will see their payments increase by 3.2 percent in 2024, which was announced by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in October. The COLA is determined by the year-over-year inflation rate for July, August, and September of the same year.

The retirement benefits will increase by about $50 a month on average once the COLA goes into effect in January, according to the agency. The rate hike is significantly smaller than the 8.7 percent adjustment that was made for all of 2023’s Social Security and SSI payments—or the highest increase in about four decades.

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Beneficiaries received a COLA increase of 5.9 percent in 2022. In 2021, recipients only got a 1.3 percent bump in payments.

For early retirees or those who retire before the full federal retirement age, the Social Security Administration deducts $1 from every $2 above a designated threshold. It will be raised to $22,320 from $21,240 starting in 2024.

The year an individual hits the full retirement age, the agency deducts $1 from every $3 earned above a second limit. Starting next year, that limit will increase from $56,520 to $59,520.

A Social Security Administration news release signaled that the agency had started “notifying people about their new benefit amount by mail starting in early December,” adding that “individuals who have a personal Social Security account can view their COLA notice online, which is secure, easy, and faster than receiving a letter in the mail.”

Is It Enough?

As the COLA was announced, a nonpartisan seniors organization, the Senior Citizens League, said that the 3.2 percent adjustment is “well above” the 2.6 percent average over the past 20 years or so.

But based on its own internal survey, the group said that “older adults are pessimistic about their finances in coming months and the growing potential for Social Security benefit cuts.” Some 68 percent of survey participants reported that “their household expenses remain at least 10 percent higher than one year ago, although the overall inflation rate has slowed. This situation has persisted over the past 12 months,” it said.

“About that 3.2 percent COLA increase for 2024, well, it sounds good on paper, but, honestly, it’s not quite cutting it for seniors,” Christopher Hensley, a financial adviser with the Houston First Financial Group, told Newsweek earlier this week. The inflation metric that the Social Security Administration uses, the consumer price index, doesn’t adequately measure what retired Americans pay for—such as medication or health care, he said.

Hannah Workman, a spokesperson for Atticus, a disability and workers compensation website, said that the 3.2 percent increase is likely “insufficient against the rise in all essential living costs such as utilities, healthcare, and food.”

“The need for nearly 40 percent of seniors to consider employment underscores the disconnect between the COLA increase and the reality of seniors’ expenses,” she added, according to the outlet.

Both Social Security and Medicare are funded by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act payroll tax, and all earnings subject to the tax will increase from $160,200 in 2023 to $168,600. The payroll tax increase will impact Americans earning that much or more.