There are plans to reduce staffing at the Social Security Administration by 7,000 and perhaps to rebuild the entire codebase, which means check delays could be a real thing. For the Urban Institute, Richard W. Johnson and Jonathan Schwabish ran the numbers for how many people could be affected if checks are just one, two, or three months late.
We find 11 percent of current Social Security beneficiaries, or 7.4 million people, do not have enough savings to replace their benefits if their Social Security checks were delayed for one month. The share with inadequate savings to replace their Social Security increases to 13 percent (8.3 million people) if checks were delayed for two months and to 14 percent (9.2 million people) if checks were delayed for three months.
For reference, SSA has never missed a benefit payment since its inception eight decades ago.
