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Many factors affect your Social Security benefits, especially during the current unpredictable economy, and your salary is just one of them.
It’s important to note that your benefit amount is not based on your last year or two in the workforce, but on your lifetime earnings, so even if you earned a lot of money in your most recent pre-retirement years, you may not get the maximum benefit amount.
Here’s how you can get the maximum Social Security benefit.
How are Social Security benefits calculated
The Social Security Administration (SSA) calculates your benefit amount by considering your lifetime earnings and then adjusting your actual earnings to take into account changes in average wages since the year you received the earnings. Your benefit is based on adjusted average monthly earnings during the 35 years in which you earned the most.
This average is added to a formula to find the “primary insurance amount” – the benefit amount you will receive at your full retirement age.
What salary is needed to get maximum benefits?
In 2025, to receive the maximum Social Security benefits, an individual must have a history of continuously earning at least the annual maximum taxable wage limit, which is $176,100.
However, if you really want to get the highest amount possible, you should delay claiming benefits until age 70. If you do this, you will get approximately $5,108 per month.
This is up from last year, as $168,600 was the required salary to receive the maximum benefit. The SSA takes your 35 highest-earning years and averages them (adjusted for inflation) to determine your benefit. If, through this calculation, you have made the maximum taxable payment in this time period, you may be eligible for the maximum benefit.
What is the maximum Social Security benefit?
The maximum benefit depends on your retirement age.
If you retire in 2025 at your full retirement age, which is 66 to 67 years old depending on the year you were born, your maximum benefit will be $4,043. However, if you retire at age 62, your maximum benefit will be $2,831, or as mentioned earlier, if you wait and retire at age 70, your maximum benefit will be $5,108.
Gabriel Ola contributed reporting to this article.