Social Security update: Payment of up to $5,181 coming this week

A fresh round of Social Security payments are due this week for millions of recipients.

More than 70 million Americans receive Social Security benefits, including retirement, disability and survivor payments. As the country’s biggest social safety net program, Social Security distributes billions of dollars each year.

Because the program covers such a large number of people, the Social Security Administration (SSA) sends benefits out on a rolling schedule over the course of each month instead of issuing all payments at once.

When Are Payments Coming?

The SSA follows a set monthly payment calendar. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is generally paid at the start of the month, while regular Social Security benefits are sent later on a staggered basis depending on recipients’ birth dates.

This week, payments are scheduled to go out on Wednesday, July 15, for beneficiaries born between the 11th and 20th of any month.

If a payment does not arrive as expected, the SSA recommends waiting three additional business days before reaching out to the agency.

How Much Is Social Security?

The size of a retirement benefit depends on several factors, including a person’s lifetime earnings, the age at which they claim benefits and the year they begin receiving payments. To qualify for Social Security retirement benefits, workers generally need at least 40 credits. People can earn up to four credits per year, which means eligibility usually takes about 10 years of work.

For people with high lifetime earnings, the timing of when they claim can make a major difference in the size of their monthly check. A worker who earned the maximum taxable amount every year from age 22 and starts collecting benefits in 2026 would receive roughly $4,152 a month at full retirement age. If that same person claimed at age 62, the monthly amount would fall to about $2,969. Waiting until age 70 would raise the payment to about $5,181 a month.

Most retired workers receive much less than the maximum benefit. As of June 2026, the average monthly Social Security payment for a retired worker stood at $2,029.92.

Latest Social Security News

Following the publication of the annual Social Security Trustee’s report last month, lawmakers have been raising potential solutions for the program’s upcoming funding shortfall.

According to the latest projections from the trustees, the program’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is on track to run out in the fourth quarter of 2032. If lawmakers do not act, payroll tax revenue coming into the program would be enough to cover only about 78 percent of scheduled benefits, triggering an automatic 22 percent reduction for retirees and survivors.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Republican Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio have called on Congress to take action to address these financial challenges, arguing that the program needs reforms to remain sustainable.

In a joint opinion article published in The New York Times earlier this month, the senators laid out a bipartisan proposal that they said would “save Social Security for generations of Americans.”

At the center of their plan is a proposal to change the way Social Security payroll taxes are applied by raising or eliminating the cap on taxable income.

In 2026, Social Security payroll taxes are collected only on wages up to $184,500. Employees and employers each contribute 6.2 percent on earnings up to that limit. Any income above the cap is not subject to Social Security payroll taxes, meaning higher earners contribute a smaller percentage of their overall income to the program.

Warren and Moreno argued that removing the cap would require all earnings to be subject to the payroll tax and would increase funding for Social Security.

“Why should a middle-class nurse pay a larger share of her paycheck—than a wealthy corporate lawyer?” Warren and Moreno wrote. “This is doubly unfair in an economy in which top earners’ wages, over time, have pulled far ahead of those of the average worker.”

What Are the Options?

Lawmakers from both parties have put forward proposals to address Social Security’s long-term funding challenges, but the approaches vary significantly.

One Democratic-backed measure, the Social Security Expansion Act, was introduced in 2025 by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, in the Senate.

The bill would increase benefit payments by applying Social Security payroll taxes to income above $250,000, similar to Warren and Moreno’s plan. It would also raise the minimum benefit for lower-income workers and change the formula used for annual cost-of-living adjustments by adopting an inflation measure focused on older Americans.

A bipartisan plan introduced last year by Republican Senator Bill Cassidy and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine would take a different approach by creating a separate investment fund intended to generate additional returns through investments in stocks, bonds and other assets. Under the proposal, the federal government would provide an initial $1.5 trillion investment, with the fund expected to grow over several decades before eventually helping to support Social Security’s finances.

Another Democratic proposal, known as the Fair Share Act, was introduced by Democrats, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Brendan Boyle. The legislation would require people earning more than $400,000 a year to pay Social Security taxes on all wages, self-employment income and investment income above that level.