The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides a vital lifeline for millions of Americans each year. The program provides benefits to recipients through the retirement, disability, and supplementary income funds. The overwhelming majority of recipients of the SSA are retirees, however, who more often than not rely on Social Security as their only source of income. Today, beneficiaries can expect a new $2,000 payment to go out.
How the Social Security Administration works
The SSA provides payments to recipients, namely through three avenues: Retirement, Disability, and the Supplementary Security Income (SSI) program. The Retirement program is the best-known and most utilized program of the three. Beneficiaries earn credits while they are still working, which goes towards their retirement income with Social Security. The amount of credits you earn while working is what determines how much income you receive through Social Security once you retire. You have to work for a minimum of 10 years to receive a retirement benefit, and the earliest you can claim is at 62 years old.
Disability income, on the other hand, is specifically for individuals who cannot work anymore because of becoming disabled. SSI income is for individuals who have little to no income or resources. Unlike the retirement program, your income status is dependent on whether you receive SSI or not. Your Social Security retirement payments are made regardless of whether you have additional sources of income or not. However, if you start to receive an income, you can no longer receive SSI payments.
These individuals will get $1,976 from the SSA soon
Due to the strong reliance many beneficiaries have on their Social Security payments, the SSA follows a strict payment schedule to ensure that beneficiaries can plan and budget their expenses accordingly. The payment schedule only deviates if payment days fall on public holidays or weekends. If this happens, payments are generally made earlier.
While Social Security payments differ between individuals, the average monthly payment to retirement beneficiaries is $1,976. According to the Social Security official payment schedule, if your birthdate falls between the 21st and 31st of any given month, you can expect your Social Security payment to go out today (March 26). The first round of payments was released on March 12 for beneficiaries who have their birthdate falls between the 1st and 10th of any given month, whereas beneficiaries born between the 11th and 20th of any given month would have received their payments on March 19.
The current state of Social Security in the United States
Currently, the SSA is considering massive changes to the program due to concerns surrounding the fund’s longevity. As it stands, beneficiaries are living longer and are significantly outnumbering the current number of working individuals who are paying money into the retirement program. Benefits are paid out from the taxes that working individuals pay into the fund. However, because of this unequal distribution, the fund is expected to begin being depleted by the early 2030s.
It is important to remember that the Social Security fund’s depletion does not mean that Social Security will cease to exist. It simply means that benefits would be reduced for recipients. To address this, lawmakers have suggested two ways to increase the longevity of the fund: either taxes must be raised, or current beneficiaries’ payments must be reduced.
It is currently unclear, however, if this will happen as newly elected President Donald Trump, serving his second non-consecutive term, has previously stated that he does not intend to raise the taxes of Social Security nor cut the benefits. President Trump has also stated that he intends to cut taxes completely on Social Security. However, experts have warned that this would not only increase the timeline of the fund’s insolvency but would also benefit top earners.
