Ask Larry

Will Social Security Recalculate My Benefit Rate Since I'm Earning More Now Than I Did In In Some Of The Years They Used To Calculate My Current Rate?

I delayed drawing my SS until age 70. I have continued to work an would like to know if they will recalculate my 35 years to include my wages now. I earn. much more than some of the years they calculated my rate on. Hope you can help with this as I get different answers from SS. Thanks, Carol

Hi Carol. The short answer is yes, Social Security should recalculate your benefit rate whenever you earn more in a year than you did in one of your previous highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings. Social Security retirement benefits are calculated based on the highest 35 years of a person's earnings, but it's the highest 35 wage-indexed earnings years that are used (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10070.pdf). Wage-indexing converts a person's historical annual earnings to amounts more reflective of current day dollars. So, in order to increase your benefit rate you would need to earn more in a year than you did in one of your previous highest 35 highest wage-indexed earnings years, not the lowest of your actual earnings years.

Social Security automatically recomputes benefits to include higher years of earnings, but those recomputations are generally not done until the fall of the year following the year of the higher earnings. So, for example, if your earnings in 2021 were higher than one of your previous highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings, then you could probably expect to actually receive the increase in the latter part of 2022. Any such increase would be retroactive to your payment for January 2022, though, so Social Security would make up any back pay due after they process the recomputation.

Best, Jerry

Posted: 
Aug 7 2022 - 1:57pm
MaxiFi software running on a laptop
Get What's Yours!
Discover tens of thousands in extra retirement dollars with Maximize My Social Security software!
  • Find your maximized strategy
  • Unlimited what-ifs
  • Step-by-Step filing instructions
  • Our software's lifetime-benefit increase for an illustrative couple earning $65K each and planning to take retirement benefits at 62.

    Results will differ based on your specific case and filing strategy.

Getting Started is Easy
Web-based software. Works on ALL browsers. No download.