Millions of retirees collecting Social Security benefits will be paid later this week—are you one of them?
Why It Matters
The Social Security Administration (SSA) pays out billions in benefits every month to nearly 70 million recipients, helping form the bedrock of income for retirees across the country. However, due to the sheer amount of recipients being paid, not everyone is paid on the same date. When a recipient is paid depends on their birth date or in some cases, how long they’ve been claiming benefits for.
What To Know
Retirement checks are distributed throughout the month, typically based on the claimant’s birth date or the duration of their benefit payments. This week, the payments will be made on Wednesday, March 12, and are for those claimants who have a birthday that falls between the 1st and 10th of any calendar month.
This payment date does not apply to beneficiaries who have either been claiming since before May 1997, or those who also receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Benefits for these groups were paid earlier this month.
GETTY
To claim Social Security retirement benefits, you must:
- Be aged 62 or older, and
- Have worked and paid Social Security taxes for 10 years or more.
On its website, the SSA explains: “The maximum benefit depends on the age you retire. For example, if you retire at full retirement age in 2025, your maximum benefit would be $4,018.
“However, if you retire at age 62 in 2025, your maximum benefit would be $2,831. If you retire at age 70 in 2025, your maximum benefit would be $5,108.”
While these are the maximum amounts, your actual payment may vary based on your lifetime earnings and the number of years you have paid Social Security taxes. In January 2025, the average retirement check issued was $1,976.
If you have not received your monthly payment on the expected date, the SSA recommends waiting three working days before contacting the agency. Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays are not considered working days.
For those impacted by the recent passage of the Social Security Fairness Act, which got rid of two provisions that reduced benefits for 3.2 million workers, including teachers, firefighters, and police officers, some federal employees, and their spouses, boosted payments are expected to arrive from April onwards.
What Happens Next
The SSA is currently undergoing a wide range of changes due to recent executive orders issued by President Donald Trump.
The federal agency announced in February that it would be undertaking workforce reductions and closing certain internal departments. More recently, the SSA confirmed that any overpayments made to beneficiaries would result in 100 percent of benefits being withheld until the debt is paid.