Rough estimate of your monthly Social Security benefit at full retirement age, using the bend-point formula.
The SSA formula applies decreasing percentages to bands ('bend points') of your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME): 90% of the first band, 32% of the next, and 15% above that. This estimator uses your entered average monthly earnings as a simplified stand-in for AIME — your real benefit depends on your full 35-year earnings history and cost-of-living adjustments.
Illustrative estimate only, using simplified/rounded 2026 figures — not tax advice. Actual federal, state, and payroll tax rules are more detailed. Always confirm with the IRS or a licensed tax professional.
Social Security retirement benefits are based on your 35 highest-earning years, adjusted for wage inflation, averaged into a figure called AIME (Average Indexed Monthly Earnings). That figure runs through a progressive formula that replaces a higher percentage of lower average earnings than higher ones, producing your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) — the benefit payable at full retirement age. If you have fewer than 35 years of earnings, the missing years count as zero in the average, which can meaningfully reduce the benefit.
When you claim matters as much as how much you earned. Claiming before full retirement age (which is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later) permanently reduces the monthly benefit, while delaying past full retirement age up to age 70 increases it by roughly 8% per year of delay. There is no benefit to delaying past 70. This calculator gives an estimate — the Social Security Administration's own record of your actual reported earnings, available through a "my Social Security" account, is the authoritative source.
For anyone born in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67. It was 65 for those born before 1938 and rose gradually in between — it is the age at which you receive 100% of your calculated benefit, with no early-claiming reduction or delayed-claiming bonus.
Claiming at 62, the earliest possible age, typically reduces the monthly benefit by around 30% compared to waiting until full retirement age, and that reduction is permanent for the rest of the benefit's life, not just temporary.
It can be, depending on total income. Up to 85% of benefits become taxable at the federal level once combined income (adjusted gross income plus nontaxable interest plus half of Social Security benefits) exceeds set thresholds — many retirees with modest other income pay no tax on their benefits at all.
Yes, but before full retirement age, earnings above an annual limit temporarily withhold part of the benefit (which is later credited back into a higher benefit at full retirement age). After full retirement age, there is no earnings limit or reduction at all.