Winning a Social Security disability or retirement claim after a long wait can end with a back-pay check that is smaller than expected. The reason is a rule called the windfall offset. When Supplemental Security Income already paid a person for the same months, Social Security reduces the retroactive payment by the SSI that would…

Social Security’s 2027 cost-of-living raise is 3.6 percent, and the first place most people will see their own new amount is online. The agency says account holders can open their notice in the my Social Security Message Center starting in late November, weeks before any paper letter reaches a mailbox. The Social Security Administration announced…

Treasury has proposed ending the one exemption from electronic federal payments that depends on a person’s age. The waiver covers people born before May 1, 1921, who were still getting a federal payment by paper check on March 1, 2013. The Bureau of the Fiscal Service published the proposal on April 29, 2026, and the…

Social Security beneficiaries who want to read their 2027 cost-of-living notice online have a date to meet: November 18. The Social Security Administration said in an October 14 news release that people without an account must create a my Social Security account and enroll in paperless notices by that day, or the notice will come…

A stay in a public homeless shelter does not automatically cut off Supplemental Security Income. Social Security says people who live in one can keep getting up to the maximum SSI benefit for up to six months out of any nine. For 2026, that maximum is $994 a month for an individual. The rule is…

A Social Security overpayment letter comes with a clock. The Social Security Administration (SSA) tells people who get one to pay the money back within 30 days. That instruction is a request, not a legal deadline to appeal, and a form filed inside the 30 days can change what happens next. SSA’s own overpayments page…

Social Security has rewritten the medical rules it uses to judge heart and circulation problems in disability cases, and the new version starts on October 30, 2026. The change covers adults and children, and it applies to claims already sitting in the system as well as brand-new ones. That timing matters for anyone who applied…

The Social Security Administration has reset the prices for records it hands out beyond its normal benefit work. Under a new notice, the agency charges $74 to manually verify a Social Security number for a third party and $54 for each W-2 or W-3 copy it provides. Both prices apply to requests that reach the…

Social Security survivor benefits can start as early as age 50 for a widow or widower who has a disability. Everyone else has to wait until 60. The earlier start comes with a time limit on when the disability began, which many people in their 50s do not know about until after the window has…

A widow or widower who remarries at age 60 or older keeps Social Security survivor benefits. The Social Security Administration says a remarriage after 60 does not stop the payments, and the same holds from age 50 for a survivor with a disability. A remarriage before those ages usually ends the benefit, which makes the…