No, Social Security recipients are not getting a $600 monthly raise

Social Security is a government program that provides monthly payments to American retirees and others who cannot work because of a disability.

Several VERIFY readers, including Patricia and Melinda, reached out to ask if claims shared in online articles about Social Security recipients getting a $600 increase in their monthly payments are true.

Do Social Security recipients get a $600 monthly raise?

No, Social Security recipients are not getting a $600 monthly raise.

Sign up for the VERIFY Fast Facts newsletter here.

Social Security recipients are not getting a $600 increase in their monthly payments. False claims are derived from articles published by unreliable websites.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) says on its website that “reports of a $600 pay increase in June are false.” Congress would also have to pass a bill to increase Social Security benefits, which has not happened.

The SSA told VERIFY that it would notify people directly of any updates or increases to their monthly Social Security payments and announce them on its website.

Social Security recipients are unlikely to receive any increase in their benefits until January 2025 when the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) takes effect. COLA increases monthly benefit payments if inflation increases over a certain period of time.

This isn’t the first time online articles have falsely claimed that Social Security recipients are getting extra money. VERIFY previously invalidated claims for people on Social Security who get federal stimulus checks in 2024.

These fake articles are typically created by content farms that “use questionable information and often rely on AI-generated articles with little or no human oversight,” McKenzie Sadeghi, AI and foreign influence editor for NewsGuard, previously told AARP .

Scam articles claim to inform readers of “exclusive” or “new” benefits that do not actually exist with the goal of attracting as many people as possible to their websites, which have numerous advertisements.

“By bringing viewers and readers to their sites, they hope that people will, in turn, click on these ads and they will earn financial income,” says Sadeghi.

If it’s not clear where the article is getting its information, that’s also a red flag, Sadeghi adds.

To avoid falling for the information in these bogus articles, Sadeghi recommends scanning the article for any information that doesn’t add up, as well as unnecessary repetition of key phrases.

For example, a website containing false information regularly repeats the phrase “$600 Increase for Social Security 2024, SSI, SSDI” in bold, which is likely to draw more attention to the page from people searching for information on regarding false claims.

That website also has numerous grammatical errors and contains a number of external advertisements, as AARP warned in its article.

The Social Security Administration says people should refer to its scam and fraud resources to understand how to spot common Social Security scams.