A new retirement payment arrives every month to beneficiaries whose Social Security benefits have already been accepted. A pre-established calendar makes it possible to know the day of the cashing of this type of check. However, it is true that millions of Americans take a little longer to receive their benefits.
The delay in receiving these payments can be due to a variety of reasons. In order to receive your Social Security benefit every month without delay, we must watch out for delays in both our information and the method of payment we have chosen. If we keep this in mind, we may never again have to wait longer than we would like to have our pension money in our pocket.
Since there are currently more than 66 million beneficiaries in the Social Security system, it is obvious that some of them will receive a late check at some point. Although it is true that most of the time the delay is not due to the Administration itself, but to personal and individual failures of the beneficiaries themselves.
Why is my Social Security check late?
There are several reasons why your Social Security check may be late every month. You may receive your pension payment late each month for one of the following reasons:
- Incorrect information at the bank. Any personal information must be updated perfectly. Otherwise we could see delays in payments.
- The Social Security Administration does not have all of our information. As with the bank, incorrect personal information can cause checks to arrive late.
- We have the slowest collection method activated. There are two ways to collect Social Security and one method is slower than the other.
- We don’t know the calendar well. If we don’t know what day we will get paid, we may think our check is late.
There are more reasons why your Social Security check may be late. Fortunately, all of these reasons are easy to fix.
How can I fix these errors that delay my pension?
Once we know what the most common reasons for late checks are, we can fix them. To do this, we must do the following:
- Always keep our information up to date. Any change in personal information should be reported to both the bank and Social Security. If we get married, get divorced or move house, we should report it immediately.
- Activating Direct Deposit is essential. Without Direct Deposit, it can take up to 3 days for a check to arrive in our pocket.
- Know what day we will be paid. There are two major groups of Social Security retirees. If you have a pension before 1997, you will receive your first check, usually on the 3rd of the month. For pensioners after that date the payment will be on the second, third and fourth Wednesday of the month, depending on the day of the birthday.
If we keep all this in mind we will no longer receive our Social Security check late, so it is good to do everything to avoid unpleasant surprises in the future.