If you are wondering why you received an extra payment on December 31, we regret to dampen your hopes because it is not an extra payment, but your first social security payment for the year 2025. This has been mainly due to the fact that the 1st is a holiday and since it is a holiday, Social Security does not want its payment to be delayed so as not to cause inconvenience to any beneficiary. We are going to tell you below what has happened and why you have received it earlier.
Advances in SSI payments
As you already know, Social Security is a vital support for millions of Americans who each month wait like water in May for this payment to arrive to help them end the month in the most dignified way possible. But, many times there are unexpected changes in the calendars. This has been what happened on December 31, 2024, where some beneficiaries of the Supplemental Security Income have received a kind of extra payment, what a mystery, right? We are here to solve that mystery for you… it is your first payment of 2025. The main reason for this “extra” payment is that the calendar, when there is a payment day and it coincides with a weekend or federal holiday, the Social Security Administration decides to adjust the date to ensure that beneficiaries receive their money without any delay.
In this case, since January 1, 2025 is a federal holiday because it is New Year’s Day, the corresponding payment was advanced to the last business day of the year, that is, December 31, 2024. And that is the reason why you have seen this “extra” payment entered into your bank account.
Give me more details
This advance has been applied specifically for SSI beneficiaries, which are normally delivered on the first day of each month. You have to keep in mind that there will not be another first payment in January, but you will have to wait until February 1st to receive the next one, so you will have to plan well how you spend the money so as not to be in a hurry in the last days.
What is the payment that I have received then?
As we have just told you, the payment that you have received is the payment that corresponds to you from the SSI for January, with its extra cost of living adjustment (COLA). That is, that 2.5% that is implemented in 2025 to compensate for the effects of inflation and ensure that all beneficiaries’ pockets do not lose any type of purchasing power. You already know that this adjustment also affects the other beneficiaries of Social Security, but they will not have that change of having received a payment before unless it also coincided with a national holiday.
How is the COLA adjustment calculated?
The COLA adjustment is automatically applied to each payment, and will be 2.5% more than what Social Security has to give you.
This adjustment is calculated through the CPI-W, and the price changes of the third quarters of the previous year and this year will be taken into account, so that an estimate will be made of how much prices have risen or fallen so that by adding that percentage to the payments, users do not notice that there has been a change in inflation.
Currently we are in a fairly low COLA because we are finally overcoming the inflation crisis, this means that it is expected that within a few years the COLA will be much smaller or not even there.
You know, the payment on the 31st was nothing extra, but what you are entitled to for meeting certain requirements.