Whether you receive Social Security or Supplemental Security Income benefits, there are fixed days. These dates tend to be the same always unless the Administration needs to make a change due to a Federal holiday or the weekend. So, if the normal payday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, it will be distributed on the previous working day.
By doing so, the Agency can deposit and issue direct deposits or checks without delays. When SSA offices are closed and banks are too, it is not possible to distribute so many monthly payments. For different reasons, some eligible recipients may want to change their payday so that they can receive their money either earlier or later, but can you change your payday?
Can I change the date I receive my Social Security or SSI benefits?
No, you can’t. The Social Security Administration can’t change the normal payday you are eligible to receive benefits in the United States. For example, the normal payment schedule is the following one:
- SSI (Supplemental Security Income) recipients collect their monthly payment on the first day of the month unless it falls on the weekend or on a Federal holiday.
- Social Security payment due on the third day of the month:
- for recipients who began getting monthly payments before May 1997
- for those on both Social Security and Supplemental Security Income
- Social Security payments on Wednesdays*:
- Second Wednesday of the month: if your birth date is from the first to the tenth
- Third Wednesday of the month: for eligible beneficiaries born from the eleventh to the twentieth
- Fourth Wednesday of the month: if you were born from the twenty-first to the thirty-first
Date of Birth & Payment Day
1st through 10th: Second Wednesday
11th through 20th: Third Wednesday
21st through 31st: Fourth Wednesday
*Only for American workers who started to collect retirement, SSDI, or survivor benefits after April 30, 1997 who are not receiving Supplemental Security Income benefits.
How can you collect Social Security payments?
Some of you may not be receiving retirement or SSDI benefits yet. To collect retirement benefits, you must have paid payroll taxes to the SSA. Thus, as you worked, you must have been earning work credits.
These work credits are necessary to be able to qualify. In fact, you will need a minimum of 40 work credits to collect Social Security benefits at the age of 62. However, this will be enough to get a low payment.
Ideally, you should work for a minimum of 35 years in jobs covered by SSA. In this way, you will get no reductions for missing work years to calculate your payment amount.
Delaying filing until you are 70 will help you boost your monthly payments. However, if you have a qualifying disability, you could get SSDI benefits at an earlier age and with fewer work credits. SSI is only for low-income and limited resources citizens who are 65 or older, have a disability or are blind.
