How is the Social Security benefit calculated?

The benefit starts from your Primary Insurance Amount: 90% of AIME up to $1,226, plus 32% from $1,226 to $7,391, plus 15% above that. An AIME of $6,000 gives a PIA of about $2,631 a month at full retirement age 67.

How much less do I get for claiming at 62?

Claiming 60 months early cuts the benefit by 30% — 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months plus 5/12 of 1% for the remaining 24. So a $2,631 PIA drops to about $1,842 a month if claimed at 62.

How much more do I get for waiting until 70?

Delaying past full retirement age earns 8% a year (2/3 of 1% per month) up to age 70. Waiting from 67 to 70 adds 24%, raising a $2,631 PIA to about $3,263 a month.

What is AIME and where do I find it?

Average Indexed Monthly Earnings is your highest 35 years of wages, indexed for wage growth and averaged per month. You do not need to compute it by hand — your personalized AIME and benefit estimate appear in your statement at ssa.gov.

Social Security Benefit Estimator

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Your Social Security retirement benefit is built from your lifetime earnings and then adjusted for the age you claim. This estimator applies the 2026 bend-point formula to your average indexed monthly earnings and shows how much you would receive each month claiming anywhere from 62 to 70.

How it works

The Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) is computed in three tiers from your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME):

PIA = 0.90 * min(AIME, 1226)
    + 0.32 * (min(AIME, 7391) − 1226, floored at 0)
    + 0.15 * (AIME − 7391, floored at 0)

The PIA is the benefit at full retirement age 67. Claiming earlier reduces it by 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% per month beyond that. Claiming later adds delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% per month (8% a year) up to age 70.

Example

With an AIME of 6,000 dollars:

PIA = 0.90 * 1,226 + 0.32 * (6,000 − 1,226) + 0 = 1,103.40 + 1,527.68 = 2,631.08

So the benefit at age 67 is about 2,631 dollars a month. Claiming at 62 cuts it 30 percent to about 1,842 dollars, while waiting until 70 adds 24 percent to about 3,263 dollars.

Notes

Estimate only, not financial advice. It uses the 2026 bend points (1,226 and 7,391 dollars) and a full retirement age of 67. It does not apply cost-of-living adjustments after you claim, the windfall elimination provision, the earnings test, or spousal and survivor benefits. Your official figures are available at ssa.gov.