In the United States, the Social Security Administration is the agency responsible for granting retirement and disability benefits. The Administration always sends the payments on the days distributed by the calendar. The payments are always 3 for retirees and 1 for Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries. Therefore, we usually have 4 different days of payments during the month, although this is not always the case.
Depending on the calendar, we can have months in which the Social Security Administration sends 3 different checks and others in which it sends up to 5. And in December we have one of those months in which the SSA pays 5 different payments to retirees and SSI recipients. This does not mean that the same retiree can receive 5 different payments. Each retiree can, at most, receive 3 of those 5 payments, which is not bad at all.
However, receiving 3 of those 5 payments means that the Social Security Administration will send you one less payment in January 2023. This detail is very important. This is since whenever we receive an extra SSI payment, we will have fewer payments in our pocket next month. As for the regular retirement payments, each retiree can receive only 1 per month.
When does Social Security send the 5 December payments?
The days when Social Security will send the 5 December payments are as follows.
- December 1st and 30. On this day, the Social Security Administration will send out the Supplemental Security Income. This is an extra payment for a certain group of retirees.
- December 14th. The SSA will send the retirement or disability benefit payment to retirees born between the 1st and the 10th.
- December 21st. On this day, Social Security users born between the 11th and 20th of the month.
- December 28th. Payments for retirees with birthdays between the 21st and 31st leave on this day.
On each of these days, a different group will be paid Social Security on each of these days. On the one hand, those born between the 1st and 10th will collect on the 14th. The second group is made up of those born between the 11th and 20th and will be paid on the 21st of December. Finally, the final retirement payment is on December 28th and will be received by those born between the 21st and 31st. The month of birth does not matter, only the day.
As for the Social Security payments on December 1 and 30, the rules are different. These are Supplemental Security Income payments, which not all retirees can receive. Only citizens with a very low income can apply for this financial help. The payment on December 1st is the December SSI payment, but the payment on December 30th is the January 2023 SSI payment.
Therefore, this is the reason why Social Security will send up to 5 payments in December, although most retirees will not receive all of them. In addition, it is also important to remember that due to this calendar change, SSA will not be making payments in January for the Supplemental Security Income benefit.