Preparations for the Christmas and New Year holidays are already underway. Most Social Security beneficiaries are eagerly awaiting their December check. The Social Security Administration will soon begin distributing its first large round of payments for this month.

Due to the number of holidays in December, the schedule for sending benefits and pensions will be a little out of the ordinary. We’ll tell you all about it here.

First Social Security payment in December

Although at first glance it seems like a very complex payment system, it is actually based solely on the beneficiaries’ date of birth. If the SSA sent pension checks to all retirees on the first day of the month, it would cause a financial collapse 12 times a year. Due to this potential bottleneck, a completely arbitrary system was created, which does not discriminate based on dignity, gender, or any other factor among beneficiaries. The day on which they receive their pension or disability assistance depends exclusively on the day on which they were born.

Wednesday, December 10, is the date for those whose birthdays fall between the first and 10th of any day of the year. If your birthday falls within those first 10 days, your money should be available on this second Wednesday in December.

Ultimately, this system is informally called the “three Wednesdays rule,” which helps distribute the flow of money throughout the month so as not to overwhelm the banking system. Depending on the day you were born, you will receive another payment on a Wednesday, which currently has a maximum cap of $5,108. In other words, a retiree can only receive a maximum of $5,108 in public pension from Social Security.

How to get the maximum pension from the SSA

To get this $5,108, a beneficiary must have met some exceptional financial requirements: first, they must have waited until age 70 by delaying their retirement to claim the maximum possible credit; they must have had income that will reach the maximum Social Security taxable amount for 35 years of their working life (it is extremely difficult to be a consistently high-income earner for more than three decades).

Although it sounds very nice in theory, most beneficiaries will see a different figure in their deposits. In fact, the average benefit for a worker retiring in 2025 ranges from $1,900 to $2,000 per month. In fact, even those who had solid careers but retired early only receive a maximum of approximately $4,018.

Because they decided to retire early, at only 62, they receive a much smaller check: the cap for this group of early retirees is around $2,831 per month. If you are already planning your retirement, you should take these factors into account. Do you want more free time, or would you prefer a more comfortable retirement? It is best to be well informed and make a decision after weighing all the options.

The SSA calendar for December 2025

If your birthday is not in the first 10 days of the month, you are probably wondering when you will receive your pension:

If you were born between the 11th and 20th of any month, the SSA will send payments on Wednesday, December 17; and
The second group, born between the 21st and 31st of the month, will receive their money on Wednesday, December 24.

Although it is Christmas Eve, December 24 is not a federal bank holiday, so banks continue to operate and process direct deposits as normal on that day. For the group of retirees who began receiving benefits before May 1997—almost three decades ago—those who receive CSSI payments already received their money on December 3, so the calendar for the rest of the month does not affect them.

Because banks are closed on New Year’s Day, January 1, 2026, the SSA will send Social Security beneficiaries their January payments on Wednesday, December 31, 2025. So now you know, if you receive this money from the S on the last day of the year, it is not a windfall, but rather the money you should receive in January.