Maximum Social Security Benefit: What Is It How Is It Figured
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The maximum Social Security retirement benefit that you can receive depends on the age when you begin collecting and your earnings history, among other factors. In 2022, the maximum is $3,345 per month for someone who files at full retirement age at age 66. But $4,194 is the absolute highest benefit for those who qualify and delay claiming until age 70.
Office Of Hearings Operations
On August 8, 2017, Acting Commissioner Nancy A. Berryhill informed employees that the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review would be renamed to Office of Hearings Operations . The hearing offices had been known as “ODAR” since 2006, and the Office of Hearings and Appeals before that. OHO administers the ALJ hearings for the Social Security Administration. Administrative Law Judges conduct hearings and issue decisions. After an ALJ decision, the Appeals Council considers requests for review of ALJ decisions, and acts as the final level of administrative review for the Social Security Administration .
Average Social Security Payment
According to the Social Security Administration , the average estimated monthly Social Security payment in 2022 after the 5.9 percent cost-of-living increase is*:
| Retiree type | |
|---|---|
| Aged couple, both receiving benefits | $2,753 |
| Widowed mother and two children | $3,187 |
| Disabled worker, spouse and one or more children | $2,383 |
*Data for this table is based on the 2022 Social Security Fact Sheet2
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What If I Delay Taking My Benefits
If you retire sometime between your full retirement age and age 70, you typically earn a “delayed retirement” credit for your own benefits . For example, say you were born in 1960, and your full retirement age is 67. If you start your benefits at age 69, you would receive a credit of 8% per year multiplied by two . This means your benefit would be 16% higher than the amount you would have received at age 67.
Fact #: Most Older Beneficiaries Rely On Social Security For The Majority Of Their Income
Social Security provides the majority of income to most older adults. For about half of this group, it provides at least 50 percent of their income, and for about 1 in 4 older adults, it provides at least 90 percent of their income, according to multiple surveys and the Census Bureau study.
Most retirees have modest incomes, save for some at the top of the income spectrum. Most low-income older Americans have very little pension income, if any, according to the U.S. Census Bureau study. Among retiree households in the bottom third of the income distribution, most received no pension income. About 1 in 4 of these households lived on less than $20,000 in 2015, and about half lived on $50,000 or less, according to an Social Security Administration study that also matches survey and administrative data.
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Does Cola Really Keep Up With Inflation
There has been a lot of discussion over the past two years over how COLA hasnt kept up with the actual inflation rate. On a strictly numerical basis, this was true in 2021 and 2022, when CPI rates reached as high as 7% and 9.1% while COLA jumped just 5.9% and 8.7% for the subsequent years.
However, over the long run, COLA has done a very good job of boosting payments to keep retirees checks in line with inflation, according to data from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. This assertion is supported by the year-by-year data, which shows benefits more than doubling from 2003 to 2023.
The reason that COLA tends to run in line with long-term inflation rates is that COLA lags real-world data a bit, meaning it moves up slowly and moves down slowly. When inflation rates spiked in 2021 and 2022, COLA began moving upward but didnt quite reach the headline CPI numbers. But, when inflation falls, COLA also will drop more slowly, meaning in coming years it may very well be above the CPI.
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How Do I Find Out My Social Security Benefit Amount
Your Social Security Statement, which the SSA recently redesigned, is the best place to find your SSDI benefit amount. You can find your statement online at www.ssa.gov/myaccount.
If you don’t receive benefits yet, your Social Security Statement will show you what your SSDI payment will be if you get approved for disability benefits this year. It also shows what your retirement benefit would be at age 62, 67, and 70. You can also check your entire covered earnings history on your Social Security Statement.
The SSA still has an online benefits calculator that you can use to get an estimate of your monthly benefits, but if you sign up for an account to see your new Social Security Statement, you won’t need it. You can also call your local Social Security office, and a field representative will be able to help you estimate what your benefits would be.
Average SSDI Benefit in 2022
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Maximum Social Security Payment
Making Social Security’s annual maximum earnings is challenging for most people. High-earning individuals are eligible for a higher monthly Social Security payment if they have met the SSA’s maximum taxable earnings each year for at least 35 years of work. The SSA reports the maximum monthly Social Security benefit an individual can receive in 2022 is:3
| Retirement Age | |
|---|---|
| Retire early at age 62 | $2,364 |
| Retire at full retirement age | $3,345 |
| Retire at age 70 | $4,194 |
Jeff Hoyt, Editor-in-Chief at SeniorLiving.org, and Mary Beth Franklin, Certified Financial Planner and Contributing Editor of InvestmentNews, take a deep dive into maximizing your Social Security payout. Watch the video below for more information.
Pro Tip:AARP notes if you wait longer than your full retirement age to claim Social Security, you can earn delayed retirement credits to increase your eventual benefit by two-thirds of one percent for every month you wait.
Ssi Benefits For Children
Supplemental Security Income is a separate program for Americans with limited incomes and few other resources. Recipients must generally be 65 or older, blind, or disabled. But SSI is also available to children under age 18 in certain cases. To qualify for SSI benefits:
- The child must have a physical or mental impairment that results in marked and severefunctional limitations.
- The impairment or impairments must have lasted or be expected to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months or be expected to result in death. In the case of blindness, that duration requirement doesn’t apply.
- A child who isn’t blind must not earn more than $1,350 per month. A child who is blind must not earn more than $2,260 per month.
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How Your Primary Insurance Amount Is Calculated
Once you have your AIME, you can calculate your primary insurance amount , the base rate for your Social Security payments. The PIA calculation relies on so-called âbend pointsâ that determine how much of your income will be replaced by Social Security benefits in retirement.
Think of bend points as similar to tax brackets, in that they determine a percentage of your benefits based on incremental buckets of earnings. There are three bend point buckets: one for 90% of income replacement, one for 32% and one for 15%.
These bend point buckets help give lower lifetime earners a higher percentage of income replacement, and higher lifetime earners a lower rate of income replacement, says Jim Blankenship, certified financial planner and author of âA Social Security Ownerâs Manual.
The dollar amounts of bend points are adjusted for inflation each year, but the percentages of each bend point are set by law and remain unchanged. AIME amounts are always rounded down to the nearest $0.10. For 2021, the bend points are:
⢠90% of the first $996 of your AIME, plus
⢠32% of your AIME between $996 and $6,002, plus
⢠15% of your AIME over $6,002
For a worker with an AIME of $6,250, the calculation would look like this:
⢠90% of $966 = $896.40, plus
⢠32% of $5,006 = $1,601.92, rounded down to $1,601.90, plus
⢠15% of $248 = $37.20
This worker would earn a monthly Social Security benefit of $2,535.50 .
Your May Have To Pay Taxes On Social Security Benefits
Most people know that Social Security is funded by a tax on earnings, currently 6.2% for the employee . But some retirees dont realize that you may well have to pay income tax on Social Security benefits when it comes time to claim them. Benefits lost their tax-free status in 1984, and the income thresholds for triggering tax on benefits havent been increased since then.
It doesnt take a lot of income for your Social Security benefits to be taxed. Your benefits wont be taxed if your provisional income is less than $25,000 if youre single or $32,000 if youre married. If youre single and your provisional income is between $25,000 and $34,000, or married filing jointly with provisional income between $32,000 and $44,000, up to 50% of your Social Security benefits may be taxable. If your provisional income is more than $34,000 on a single return or $44,000 on a joint return, up to 85% of your benefits may be taxable.
The Social Security Administration says about 40% of beneficiaries pay taxes on their benefits. Since the thresholds arent adjusted for inflation, the number of beneficiaries who pay taxes on Social Security benefits increases every year. The Social Security Trustees annual report estimates that taxes on Social Security will total $45.1 billion in 2022, up from $34.5 billion in 2021.
You may also have to paystateincome taxes on your Social Security benefits. See our list of the 12 States That Tax Social Security Benefits.
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How Much Do You Have To Make To Get Maximum Social Security
To receive the maximum Social Security benefit, you would need to earn at least the maximum wage taxable by Social Security for 35 years and delay claiming the benefit until you reach 70. The earnings cap adjusts every year based on changes to the national average wage index and is $160,200 in 2023, up from $147,000 in 2022.
What’s Full Retirement Age
Full retirement age is when you’re eligible to receive full Social Security benefits. Your full retirement age depends on your birth year: For anyone born in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67. For those born in 1955 through to the end of 1959 , full retirement age ranges between 66 and 2 months and 66 and 10 months. If you were born before 1955, you’ve already reached age 66 and full retirement age.
| If you were born in… | Your full retirement age is… |
|---|---|
| 1954 or earlier | You’ve already hit full retirement age |
| 1955 | |
| 67 |
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How To Get A New Social Security Card
If you lose your Social Security card, you dont need a replacement in most cases. Just knowing your number is enough, SSA says.
If you do need a replacement, you can apply online with a free my Social Security account or in-person. If you cant use your account to request a replacement card, you can still start the process and complete it at a local Social Security office, typically more quickly, SSA says. In that case, though, youll need to provide required documents, such as a birth certificate, drivers license and passport.
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Are All Kinds Of Social Security Income Taxable
All social security benefits are taxable in the same way. This is true whether theyre retirement, survivors, or disability benefits. Take note that Social Security benefits paid to a child under his or her Social Security number could be potentially taxable to the child, not the parent. Note: Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, is a non-taxable needs-based federal benefit. It is not part of Social Security benefits and does not figure into the taxable benefit formula.
Finding your taxable income is an important part of filing taxes. Learn how to calculate your taxable income with help from the experts at H& R Block.
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When You Choose To Start Taking Social Security Benefits
The yearâand even the month within that yearâthat you choose to begin taking Social Security benefits affects how much you receive each month. You can start claiming Social Security benefits early as age 62, the current early retirement age. But you wonât get your full PIA. Itâll be reduced based on how many months you have until your full retirement age. This reduction can really add up, topping in at as high as 30% for particularly early claimers.
You can avoid these surcharges on your PIA, of course, simply by waiting to start payments until your full retirement age. This is generally between ages 66 and 67, depending on when you were born.
You can even add onto your base amount by delaying when you start benefits. After you reach full retirement age, you can boost your benefits by up to 8% of your PIA annually simply by not claiming Social Security. These benefit increases are known as delayed retirement credits, and you can accrue them up to age 70.
An important note: These benefit rate changes are performed to provide roughly the same cumulative benefit over a lifetime, assuming a roughly average lifespan. In other words, if you start Social Security earlier, youâll probably claim it for longer someone with the same lifespan who delayed payments would claim them for less time. To provide them the same total benefit, earlier payments must be smaller and later benefits have to be larger to catch up.
Fact #: Social Security Benefits Are Modest
Social Security benefits are much more modest than many people realize the average Social Security retirement benefit in January 2022 was about $1,614 per month, or about $19,370 per year. For someone who worked all of their adult life at average earnings and retires at age 65 in 2022, Social Security benefits replace about 37 percent of past earnings. Social Securitys replacement rate fell as the programs full retirement age gradually rose from 65 in 2000 to 67 in 2022.
Most retirees enroll in Medicares Supplementary Medical Insurance and have Part B premiums deducted from their Social Security checks. As health care costs continue to outpace general inflation, those premiums will take a bigger bite out of their checks.
Social Security benefits are also modest by international standards. The U.S. ranks just outside the bottom third of developed countries in the percentage of an average workers earnings replaced by the public pension system.
Social Security is important for children and their families as well as for older adults. Over 6.5 million children under age 18 lived in families who received income from Social Security in 2019. That number included nearly 2.8 million children who received their benefits as dependents of retired, disabled, or deceased workers, as well as others who lived with parents or relatives who received Social Security benefits.
Social Security lifted 1.1 million children above the poverty line in 2020, as the chart shows.
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Social Security Cola 202: When Will My Benefits Increase Begin
Late last year, the Social Security Administration announced the biggest payment increase for the program in decades. Every year since 1975, the SSA has instituted a cost-of-living adjustment after analyzing rates of inflation to see how much to increase beneficiary amounts to help recipients keep up with the cost of goods.
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The latest COLA is a record 8.7% bump, taking into account the rampant rates of inflation that have been affecting Americans all year. As noted by CBS, the last time Social Security saw this kind of increase was back in 1981 when the SSA announced a COLA of 11.2%.
The news of the 2023 payment increase comes as a relief to the many seniors and other beneficiaries of Social Security who have been struggling to pay bills and buy groceries as prices keep rising.
According to the latest Consumer Price Index report , the cost of food is up 11.2% over this time last year while utilities like electric and piped gas are up 19.8% and the cost of housing is up 6.6%.
With the payment increase in 2023, Forbes said 8.7% more will equate to an average added monthly benefit of $144 for individuals and $240 extra for couples filing jointly. But the biggest question on many peoples minds is: When will these increases start being reflected in monthly payments?
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Medicare premium decreases will also take effect in January 2023.
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Working Outside Of The United States
If you retire and work outside the United States, the rules are different. If you are younger than full retirement age, Social Security will reduce your benefits for every month you work more than 45 hours in a job that’s not subject to U.S. Social Security taxes. That applies regardless of how much money you earn. These rules can get complicated, so you’ll want to contact Social Security for advice on your particular situation.
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