It is important, first of all, to have a specific and real knowledge of what this assistance consists of, how it is distributed and the amount to which one is eligible in the case of benefiting from it. On a monthly basis, the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends out various grants. In this sense, we can include disability payments, but also those received by retired workers and survivors.
Continuing along the same lines, it should be noted that these payments vary from one beneficiary to another. Therefore, each year all of them are affected by the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which represents an increase in monthly payments. More specifically, the COLA is not a fixed amount, which is why the increase can be higher or lower, depending on the circumstances at any given time.
Being already aware of this information, now the Look At The Square team has gone a step further and has gathered the rest of the data you need to have in your possession to calculate the COLA. Likewise, they will be of great help to you to know what the increase in Social Security payments will be in 2024 and what exact day in September you will receive your money. The latter is directly related to the day of your birth.
The COLA and how it is calculated
As mentioned above, the COLA is linked to the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). On paper, the SSA calculates it on an annual basis so that it does not affect the purchasing power of beneficiaries.
On the other hand, the COLA calculation takes into account the CPI-W data from the third quarter of the previous year and compares it with the data from the third quarter of the current year. To better understand this, the following example is very useful: to determine the COLA for 2023, a calculation was made of the difference between the CPI-W for 2021 and 2022. That figure was 8.7%, so Social Security payments increased by that amount.
In this regard, the SSA, which is the federal government agency that oversees benefits, adds that money to the payments made to more than 70 million people. Most of them receive them through direct electronic transfers that will begin in January.
The date you will receive your COLA payments
It is also very important that we know the exact date on which the money we are entitled to will enter our bank account and, therefore, we will be able to start making use of it. In this way, the date of your birth will be a determining factor in whether that date is nearer or further away.
For beneficiaries whose birthdays fall between the 11th and 20th of any month of the year, they will receive checks for up to $4,555 in two days on Wednesday, September 20. On the other hand, beneficiaries whose birthday is between the 1st and 10th of the month already received their first Social Security payment on September 13. If you should have received it and have not, you can find out how to claim it.
There is a third case and they are those beneficiaries who have their birthdays after the 21st of any month, including this one. They will have to wait until Wednesday, September 27th to receive the money they are entitled to.
This is the amount that corresponds to you in the COLA payment
We now turn to that aspect that will be of great interest to many: the amount of money you are entitled to depending on your personal circumstances. Along these lines, the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security taxes will increase to $160,200.
In addition to this, the earnings limit for workers who are under “full” retirement age will reach $21,240. Similarly, this same earnings limit, but for individuals who reach their “full” retirement age in 2023 will increase to $56,520.
In contrast, there is no established earnings limit for those workers who reach their “full” retirement age or who are older throughout the year.