Hi Larry,
My wife is 63 and I am 55. She has a good paying factory job, but it is more difficult as the years go by. She has worked for 35+ years but only has made decent money in the past 10 years. She really wants to retire. Should she?

Hi. Deciding when to retire involves more than just Social Security considerations, so your wife will need make her own decision with regard to when to retire. It sounds like you're already aware that your wife's Social Security retirement benefit rate will be based on her highest 35 years of Social Security covered wage-indexed earnings. If your wife stops working she'll no longer be able to increase her benefit rate by replacing lower earnings years with higher ones, but her benefit rate would still continue to increase until she reaches age 70 if she delays collecting her Social Security benefits until then.

It sounds like your wife may want to strongly consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully analyze her Social Security options in order to help her determine her best strategy for maximizing her benefits. The software would allow your wife to input projected future earnings so that she can determine how much those earnings would increase her benefit rate if she decides to delay her retirement.

Best, Jerry