Some Social Security beneficiaries will get a head start to the new year this week.
Because the first day of next month is New Year's Day, a federal holiday, some benefits will be paid on
Wednesday, Dec. 31. And with the cost-of-living adjustment for 2026, beneficiaries will see a small boost to their benefits.
Social Security payments are based on a recipient's birthday; and are typically made on the second, third, or fourth Wednesday of the month.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—a monthly payment for senior citizen beneficiaries who have little or no financial resources or income outside of Social Security, or low-income people who are blind or have a disability—is paid on the first of the month. But since New Year's Day is a federal holiday, benefits are paid on the
preceding business day.
People who receive both Social Security and SSI, or individuals that have been on Social Security since before May 1997, typically receive their benefits on the 3rd of the month. Since the 3rd of January falls on a Saturday, they will receive their benefits on
Friday, Jan. 2.
Beneficiaries will also see a jump in their payments, thanks to the Social Security Administration's
cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2026. The SSA announced earlier this year that benefits will increase 2.8 percent to keep up with the pace of inflation: COLA is directly tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). This applies to all 71 million beneficiaries receiving Social Security and 7.5 million people receiving SSI payments.
“Social Security is a promise kept, and the annual cost-of-living adjustment is one way we are working to make sure benefits reflect today’s economic realities and continue to provide a foundation of security,” Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said in a
press release on the Social Security Matters website. “The cost-of-living adjustment is a vital part of how Social Security delivers on its mission.”
In his
end-of-year message to Congress last month, Bisignano touted significant improvements in efficiency made by converting the SSA to a digital-first model. Wait times on the SSA's nationwide 800 hotline have been reduced from an average of 28 minutes in 2024 to just 15 minutes in 2025, and down to 7 minutes in the month of September. They accomplished this despite handling a 65 percent higher call volume this year. Part of the reason the SSA was able to accomplish this was the use of self-service calls or convenient callbacks: almost 90 percent of calls to the hotline are handled using these methods.
Moreover, in-office wait times decreased from 30 minutes in 2024 to 22 minutes in 2025; and visitors who scheduled appointments had a wait time of roughly 6 minutes. Bisignano also pointed to a key software update that allowed field agents to process claims regardless of point of origin. He also pointed to significant improvements to the Social Security website, cutting down the average of 29 hours per week of scheduled down time and giving beneficiaries access to their benefits 24/7.
The SSA also managed to cut down on its backlog of disability claims, from 1.26 million in June 2024 to 865,000 in 2025. The average wait time for a claim has been cut by 13 percent, and by an average of 60 days in the fiscal year. The SSA also cut down the backlog of pending actions by over a million.
