Receiving the news that retirees in the United States will get a bigger Social Security check in 2022 is really good news. After going through the Christmas and New Year’s Eve seasons, where spending skyrockets a lot, learning that pensioners will receive a larger check is great news. The COLA was announced last October, although it is only now that it has started to work.
Although this will be the first of the retirement checks with the new COLA added, Social Security already sent out a check with this new increase. However, this check pertained to Supplemental Security Income and not retirement as such. In the case of the next check, this is a new retirement check.
The COLA addition will be 8.7% and this extra will be received by all Social Security retirees. Moreover, there is no need to do anything to claim it, since the COLA is automatically added to the checks that the Social Security will send throughout the year. In 2023 the maximum will become $4,555 instead of the $4,149 we had in 2022.
When does the Social Security Administration send the first 2023 COLA check?
The first of these payments with the COLA already added will be on January 11. Therefore, it will only be one week before the first of these payments reaches the pockets of Social Security retirees. However, not all retirees receive this check on the same day. Only pensioners born between the 1st and 10th of the month will have access to this payment.
The rest of the pensioners in the other groups will receive their benefit in the following weeks. Thus, on the 18th day of the month, pensioners born between the 11th and 20th of the month will receive their check. Finally, in the last week of the month, on the 25th day to be more precise, Social Security beneficiaries with birthdays between the 21st and 31st of the month will receive their pensions.
How is the COLA calculated?
The COLA, or Cost-of-living-adjustment, was created so that Social Security users could combat inflation. The government did not add the COLA to SSA checks to increase retirees’ wealth, but rather so that they would not lose purchasing power.
The annual increase in the pension checks is made through a calculation from the increase in the CPI-W in the months of July, August and September. After these months, the increase in prices is averaged and the COLA for the following year is announced in October. This COLA is then added to Social Security checks automatically starting with the first check of the year.