Supplemental Security Income payments will reach a large portion of United States households today. This is true if you have a particular collection method activated, as the Social Security Administration is mailing the checks today. Whether we get it or not will depend on whether we have activated the faster collection method.
If this is the case, the Supplemental Security Income payment of up to $914 may appear immediately in the checking account. However, if we do not have this collection method activated, we will still get the money, but not on the exact same day.
In order to cash one of these checks immediately, we need to activate Direct Deposit and have payment accepted in advance. It is not possible to cash the new Supplemental Security Income if we do not have it accepted in advance.
But another thing to keep in mind is the COLA 2024. If one of the December payments does have the COLA added to it, why don’t the rest of the payments have it? This question is much more important than it seems, because in the case of adding the COLA to all payments we could have a higher Supplemental Security Income today.
WHY ISN’T THE COLA ADDED TO TODAY’S SUPPLEMENTAL SECURITY INCOME PAYMENT?
The purpose of the COLA is to give people the ability to keep up with inflation each year. Therefore, the COLA increase is once a year, regardless of whether we are talking about Social Security or Supplemental Security Income payments.
Since the increase is once a year we can’t find ourselves with a COLA Every Month, which means that in December 2023 we can’t have COLA included in the checks. However, there is a check that has this COLA added, which will be the last one of the month.
On the 29th day of December the Social Security Administration will send out an extra Supplemental Security Income that actually pertains to January 2024. Since it belongs to the January 2024 calendar, we find that it includes the 3.2% extra for this month.
Therefore, the reason today’s payment does not have the COLA included yet is that it does not belong to the 2024 payment schedule, but to the 2023 schedule. So we cannot expect a larger check, but the usual check with a maximum of $913.
WHAT WILL THE SOCIAL SECURITY MAXIMUM BE IN 2024?
After the 2024 COLA is added, Social Security checks will be capped at $4,700 per month. Supplemental Security Income, on the other hand, will be able to reach $943, although this does not mean that all recipients will get this figure.
Regardless of how much we have in either check, the payment will increase by 3.2%. So if you have a $1,000 check, for example, as of January 2024 you will get $1,032.
For every $100 we’ll get $3.2 more and for every $1,000 we’ll get an extra $32. That’s true for Supplemental Security Income as well as any of the other benefits sent by the Social Security Administration.