From the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which left some confused about Social Security taxes, to concerns about whether benefits will shrink in less than a decade, here is a roundup of what happened last month regarding the program and what this means for you.

The new Social Security payments for retirees aged 70 and above, now capped at $5,108, go out in nine days. When will checks arrive? Social Security payments are scheduled to begin on the second Wednesday of every month,

As such, the way inflation trends in August will have a huge impact on next year's Social Security raise. Similarly, in mid-August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release its CPI-W data from July. So that should give an even stronger clue as to what might be in store for 2026.