Wednesday’s deposit closes out the August calendar, and September opens with an SSI payment on the 1st and a separate date on the 3rd before the three usual Wednesdays.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) will issue the last Social Security payment of the month on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, three days from now, and it goes to retirement and disability beneficiaries born between the 21st and the 31st of any month. It is the fourth Wednesday of August, the final slot in the birth-date calendar the agency applies to everyone who began collecting benefits after April 1997. The three earlier August dates, August 3, August 12 and August 19, have already been paid.
Who is paid on Wednesday, August 26
SSA divides its monthly payroll by date of birth. Birthdays from the 1st to the 10th are paid on the second Wednesday of the month, birthdays from the 11th to the 20th on the third Wednesday, and birthdays from the 21st to the 31st on the fourth Wednesday. That last group is the one due this week. The rule is set out in the agency’s official payment calendar page and in the 2026 calendar PDF.
The date does not change the amount. According to SSA’s Monthly Statistical Snapshot for July 2026, the average retired-worker benefit stood at $2,085.98 a month and the average disabled-worker benefit under SSDI at $1,635.27. Both figures already include the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) that took effect in January 2026.
Why there is no SSI payment dated in August
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is normally paid on the 1st of each month, but August 1, 2026 fell on a Saturday. The August SSI payment therefore arrived early, on Friday, July 31, which is why no SSI deposit carries an August date this year.
SSA’s rule is explicit on this point: “If your regularly scheduled payment date falls on a Saturday, Sunday or legal public holiday, benefits will be paid the business day before your due date.” That is a shift in the calendar, not a missed payment and not an extra one.
The full September 2026 payment calendar
September returns to a standard pattern, with five separate payment dates and no weekend adjustments:
- Tuesday, September 1 — SSI, on its regular date.
- Thursday, September 3 — people who started receiving benefits before May 1997, and people who receive both Social Security and SSI.
- Wednesday, September 9 — birth dates from the 1st to the 10th.
- Wednesday, September 16 — birth dates from the 11th to the 20th.
- Wednesday, September 23 — birth dates from the 21st to the 31st.
September 11 is the next COLA milestone
On Friday, September 11, the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the August reading of the CPI-W, the inflation index used to calculate the annual increase, according to its news release schedule. By law the COLA is the rise in the CPI-W from the third quarter of one year to the third quarter of the next, which means July, August and September. September 11 therefore covers the second of the three months that count.
Independent projections remain estimates, not official figures. The Senior Citizens League estimated the 2027 COLA at 3.6% on August 12, down from the 3.8% it had estimated on August 3, while the independent analyst Mary Johnson put it at 3.4% on the same date. The July CPI-W was up 3.4% over the previous year.
It is worth remembering that none of those numbers is binding. The official 2027 COLA is expected on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, alongside the September CPI release, and September’s payment amounts are unaffected by it. After September 23 the calendar turns with the fiscal year, which ends on Wednesday, September 30, and the next SSI payment follows on Thursday, October 1.
