The decision to sign up for Social Security is significant, because your filing age helps determine how much monthly income the program gives you. If you sign up at full retirement age, you get the complete monthly benefit you’re entitled to based on your personal earnings record. You can also file early for a reduced benefit, or delay your claim beyond full retirement age for more money each month.

Key Points from 24/7 Wall St.

• Once you sign up for Social Security, it could take a while for your first payment to arrive.
• Contact the Social Security Administration if your first payment doesn’t show up three months from when you’ve applied.
• Make sure the information in your Social Security account is accurate.

But no matter when you sign up for Social Security, once you submit your application, you’ll probably be eager to receive your first benefit payment as soon as possible. What if you signed up a while ago, though, and your first check has yet to arrive? There’s no need to panic — but you should start to investigate.

Why your first Social Security check may be missing

Once you sign up to receive benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has to process your application and confirm that you’re eligible for them. You should expect it to take a good number of weeks for your application to be processed, but it could take longer — up to three months, in fact, depending on how backed up the SSA is.

And also, either way, you should know that your first check won’t arrive until the month after you submit your application. So if you apply in March, the earliest your first check could come through is April.

But let’s say it’s been three months since you filed for benefits and no payments have arrived. At that point, it’s time to start digging.

First, check your online Social Security account to make sure the information you put in is correct. If you signed up for direct deposit and entered the wrong bank account information, that could result in a delay.

You may also want to contact your bank to see if there was an issue in processing your Social Security payment. From there, you can contact the SSA by phone or by visiting a local office to see if someone can investigate for you.

You should also know that there are certain circumstances that might reduce your Social Security check down to $0. For example, the government pension offset could shrink your Social Security benefit down to the point where you get nothing. And if you’ve claimed Social Security before reaching full retirement age and earn a lot of money from a job, your check could be whittled down to $0 because you’ve well exceeded the earnings-test limit.

Sign up in advance to avoid problems

It’s not a given that you’ll get your first Social Security check in short order after filing for benefits. To avoid a financial crunch, apply for Social Security well before you actually want your first check to arrive.

The SSA allows you to submit an application for benefits up to four months before you want them to start. That gives you plenty of time to work out any kinks and help ensure that your money arrives when you want it to.

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