More than 7 million Americans were slated to begin receiving bigger government benefit payments on Dec. 30 after soaring inflation prompted a near-record high 8.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) which, as the year progresses, will ultimately see nearly 70 million people getting a benefit boost.
Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits were slated to increase by around $140 per month on average after the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced earlier in 2022 that the cost-of-living adjustment for 2023 would be the biggest since the 1980s.
The 8.7-percent adjustment was due to decades-high inflation squeezing the budgets of American families.
Individual SSI payments, which millions of Americans were to start receiving on Dec. 30 because Jan. 1, 2023, is a public holiday, went up from a maximum of $841 per month last year to $914 per month in 2023 after the COLA bump, according to a fact-sheet (pdf) released by the SSA….