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Why Some Social Security Recipients Will Get 2 Payments in October
By Pete Grieve MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
Due to a calendar quirk, people who get Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits will be paid twice in the month of October.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients will get two payments in October. It’s not a mistake: This is all part of the regular schedule.
The SSI program is administered by Social Security and provides benefits of up to $967 per month for individuals with little or no income and resources who are blind, disabled or 65 and older.
Usually, SSI benefits are paid to about 7.4 million recipients on a monthly basis. But the double send in October is nothing to worry about. SSI benefits typically go out on the first of the month. However, if that day falls on a weekend or a holiday, payments are sent earlier.
In the calendar month of September, for example, there was no SSI payment because Sept. 1 was Labor Day, so federal agencies were closed. That meant September’s benefits were actually paid on Aug. 29.
When will SSI checks arrive in October?
Payments will go out on Wednesday (Oct. 1) and Oct. 31.
Technically, SSI income will double in October. That may be confusing — or it may even feel like a nice bonus — but it’s really just the November payment arriving early, as Nov. 1 is a Saturday.
Upcoming SSI payment schedule
After October, two SSI payments will be issued in the same month one more time in 2025. Here’s when SSI benefits will be paid out through the end of the year:
- Oct. 1: Regular payment for October
- Oct. 31: Early payment for November (due to Nov. 1 falling on a Saturday)
- Dec. 1: Regular payment for December
- Dec. 31: Early payment for January 2026 (due to New Year’s Day)
You can view a full calendar of Social Security and SSI payments on the Social Security Administration’s website.
Note that people who claimed Social Security before May 1997 and those who get both Social Security and SSI benefits are on a slightly different schedule. They will receive their Social Security payment on the third of the month in October, November and December, as usual. It’s only the SSI payment that will come twice in October.
In related news, the Social Security Administration is discontinuing paper checks in accordance with a federal mandate for agencies to switch to electronic payments (to the extent possible) by the end of September. SSI recipients are being advised to call 1-800-772-1213 if they need help setting up a new payment method.
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Social Security’s Confusing ‘Full Retirement Age’ May Get a Rebrand
Social Security to Stop Sending Paper Checks This Month
Pete Grieve is a New York-based reporter who covers personal finance news. At Money, Pete covers trending stories that affect Americans’ wallets on topics including car buying, insurance, housing, credit cards, retirement and taxes. He studied political science and photography at the University of Chicago, where he was editor-in-chief of The Chicago Maroon. Pete began his career as a professional journalist in 2019. Prior to joining Money, he was a health reporter for Spectrum News in Ohio, where he wrote digital stories and appeared on TV to provide coverage to a statewide audience. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Sun-Times and CNN Politics. Pete received extensive journalism training through Report for America, a nonprofit organization that places reporters in newsrooms to cover underreported issues and communities, and he attended the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in 2021. Pete has discussed his reporting in interviews with outlets including the Columbia Journalism Review and WBEZ (Chicago's NPR station). He’s been a panelist at the Chicago Headline Club’s FOIA Fest and he received the Institute on Political Journalism’s $2,500 Award for Excellence in Collegiate Reporting in 2017. An essay he wrote for Grey City magazine was published in a 2020 book, Remembering J. Z. Smith: A Career and its Consequence.