Every State's Average Social Security Check (Including ${region:capitalized}$)

Retirees on Social Security need to use strategies to maximize their benefits — because the typical payments can be pretty small.

The program's annual cost-of-living raise is on the teensy side for 2020 — just 1.6% — and it will leave seniors with an average benefit of $1,503 per month, or $18,036 for the full year.

But there can be big differences in Social Security from one state to another.

Here's how all 50 states and the District of Columbia will rank for Social Security in 2020, going from the smallest average payments to the largest.

Our methodology: We took Social Security's most current data on monthly benefits and retired workers per state to determine the average monthly benefit for a retired worker in each state during 2018. To those results, we added 2.8%, representing Social Security's cost-of-living increase for 2019. Then, to those results, we added 1.6% — the cost-of-living increase for 2020 — to determine the average benefit for a retired worker in each state during 2020.