Millions of recipients of Social Security will not receive a payment in September due to a quirk in the calendar.
Recipients of the Supplemental Security Income, or SSI program, won’t receive any check in September. That’s because checks are always sent on the first of every month.
September 1 ended up being a Sunday this year, though, so recipients were sent their checks early, back on August 30. Their next payment, then won’t be sent out until October 1.
Speaking with Newsweek recently, Alex Beene, who works at the University of Tennessee at Martin as a financial literacy instructor, commented:
“Obviously, any time there’s disruption to someone’s expected benefits payment, it triggers fear among recipients, but this one is quite minor and has more to do with the calendar.
“Since the next payments won’t go out until October 1, this means SSI recipients technically won’t get a check in September, but there is no disruption to the amount of funds they receive.”
Some recipients of the program get as much as $943 per month from the SSI benefits, which are provided under the broader Social Security program. More than 7 million people receive these benefits.
People who collect payments from the regular Social Security program get their checks depending on what their birth date is. So, there won’t be a disruption to when they receive their checks this month.
People who are born between the first and 10th of the month get this month’s benefits from SSA on September 11. Those born from the 11th to the 20th of the month will get their checks on September 18. Those who are born from the 21st to the 31st of the month will get their checks September 25.
While recipients of the SSI program might be up in arms and worried about what they’re going to do without a September payment, there’s really nothing to be concerned about. It’s only a “quirk” in the Social Security system, 9i Capital Group CEO Kevin Thompson said.
After all, beneficiaries actually received their September checks early. Their payments weren’t skipped, and they’ll still receive the same amount that they get every year.
As he explained:
“It is really no issue since the payment should have actually been received earlier than normally anticipated. So, in essence, it is not truly a skipped payment, but a double payment in the month of August.”
For the rest of the year, all SSI payments will go out on their normal schedule, as there are no more calendar “quirks.”
The SSA announced some new changes last week, saying that physical signatures no longer will be required on more than 30 different benefit application forms. Digital signatures will be accepted from now on for those forms, while 13 other forms won’t require any signature.
As Thompson explained:
“The SSA is trying to feel its way into this digital world without compromising security. The need for digital signatures should speed up the processing times and automate processes that should have been automated years ago.”
