These days if you are to order a new batch of checks you are given a choice of designs for the background and can even select a personal message line. You may notice, however, that the choices appear to skew towards appealing to an older demographic. One recent option appears to show a celestial host of saintly cats, of all things. Message lines include the kind of trite nonsense that might be seen on your grandmother’s kitchen wall such as “Faith, Family, Friends”. Of course, it doesn’t take more than a casual awareness in the queue at the supermarket to see that indeed it is our older citizens who use checks on a regular basis, so it makes sense for banks to appeal to their sensibilities.
Not so the Social Security Administration. The agency recently announced that after September 30 this year they will no longer be issuing any paper checks to any of its beneficiaries, be they retired or disabled. Instead, everyone has two months to enroll in a direct deposit at a bank of their choosing or to sign up for the Direct Express debit card where SSA can electronically send the monthly payment.
While we can only hope that Granny’s ready to learn a new trick in her dotage, the name of the game is efficiency and the march of progress.
You can read the official line here: Social Security Transition to Electronic Payments—What Beneficiaries Receiving Paper Checks Need to Know | SSA