COLA Social Security payment 2022: Who'll get $1,657 checks by the end of the month
The 5.9% cost-of-living adjustment, the largest since 1982, raised the average retiree's monthly check from $1,565 to $1,657 starting in January 2022.
Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for roughly 70 million Americans rose 5.9% starting in January 2022, the largest cost-of-living adjustment since 1982, according to reporting from The US Sun. The average monthly payment for retired workers increased from $1,565 to $1,657, an increase of about $92 a month.
SSI recipients saw their monthly payments rise from $794 to $841, per the same reporting. The Social Security Administration mailed COLA notices to eligible beneficiaries in December 2021, ahead of the new payment amounts taking effect.
The adjustment was tied to the increase in the Consumer Price Index, as determined by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, reflecting the broader inflation beneficiaries were experiencing at the time, according to the reporting.
The January payment schedule
Payment timing depended on a beneficiary's birth date, per the reporting: those born before the 10th of the month received their payment within eight days, by January 12, 2022; those born on the 11th through the 20th were paid on the third Wednesday of the month; and those born on the 21st through the 31st were paid on the fourth Wednesday.
Who qualifies
The increase applied to retirement beneficiaries, survivors and disability beneficiaries, and SSI recipients, according to the reporting. Individuals divorced for at least two continuous years may also qualify for benefits based on an ex-spouse's earnings record, per the same source.
A number that applies to some, not all, Americans
A separate fact-check from WFAA emphasized that the $1,657 figure was not a check sent to all Americans, but rather the new average monthly Social Security benefit after the COLA adjustment -- a distinction that mattered because the figure circulated widely in a way that suggested a broader one-time payment, when it in fact described an ongoing, averaged monthly benefit that varies by individual work history and claim type.
What the increase didn't cover
The standard Medicare Part B premium, which is typically deducted directly from Social Security checks, jumped 14.5% for 2022, according to CNBC's coverage of the COLA taking effect -- a increase large enough that advocacy groups tracking retiree purchasing power flagged it as eating into a meaningful share of the raise for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare. CNBC's reporting characterized the 5.9% adjustment itself as historically large in nominal terms even as inflation continued to run hot through the months that followed, a dynamic that left some retirees describing the raise as effectively smaller than advertised once the higher Medicare premium was subtracted.
The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan group that tracks retiree buying power, said it received more than 200 emails in the weeks around the COLA's rollout from retired and disabled people describing financial strain as inflation outpaced their new benefit amount, according to the group's own published research retrieved in this session. The League's tracking found that Social Security's purchasing power fell from a 30% cumulative loss as of March 2021 to a 40% cumulative loss by March 2022 -- the largest such single-year drop the group had recorded -- because, per its analysis, COLAs had raised benefits a cumulative 64% since 2000 while typical senior expenses over the same period had risen roughly 130%. Mary Johnson, a Social Security policy analyst for the League, was quoted describing the 5.9% figure as the largest COLA that most beneficiaries alive today had ever seen.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by The US Sun, WFAA and CNBC. It restores a story originally published on this site in January 2022; figures are as reported at the time.