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It seems to me I'm getting bad #s from the retirement estimator based on the percentage increase/decrease for delayed/early retirement and I'm using my trust Spreadsheet to work this all out.
After running the estimator based on projected earnings of X amount, the system quotes the following:
Age 62: $1,391
Age 67: $2,079 (full)
Age 70: $2,627
But if $2,079 is correct, then the other two must be wrong according to "Effect of Early or Delayed Retirement on Retirement Benefits" chart, which shows the percentage increase/decrease according to age of benefit receipt.
According to the chart, Age 62 should result in a 70% benefit, which is $1,455.30 and not $1,391.00 and Age 70 should result in a 124% benefit, which is $2,578, and not $2,627.
(The same is true running my wife's. The numbers are wrong on hers, too.)
Can any tell my why the discrepancy? I assume the answer is that I'm missing something, but it's very confusing.
My guess is the calculator assumes continued paying into system at a certain income level in line with what you have historically made. This would then affect your eligible payment larger.
For example, I think the calculator does not do some folks justice.
In particular those who wish to stop working at 62, self finance until 67(FRA) and then collect. My guess is the amount received is lower than SSA estimate as they did not pay into system for those 5 yrs which calculator assumes.
The Estimator asks for personal information - SSN, mother's maiden name, etc - so it is definitely pulling in information from our own earnings history. I can see how it might be taking into consideration the entirety of the 35 years of work history to come up with it's 100% basis benefit. But it then seemingly fails to apply the 70% reduction or the 124% increase with proper math. Really odd.
One explanation could be that your early earning years are at a much lower income than your recent years. Thus, if you take early retirement at 62 based on your average earnings to that point, the low income years will figure more heavily into the social security calculation of the highest 420 months (35 years) of earned income. If you wait until 67 to collect, later higher earnings years replace the lower ones, and your monthly average earnings over the 35 years will be higher. The best way to test this is to use the anypia tool from SSA, and input your actual annual earnings. You can find that tool here:
It requires that you input every year of earnings, but once you do that, it lets you calculate an earlier retirement date to see what impact it has on your social security benefit.
The same thing happened to me last month. I left on message to call me on mysocialsecurity and they did within 3 mins! The numbers on my calculator were not accurate. She ASSURED me that I would really get 86.6% at 64 and 93.3% at 65 AND gave me the actual amounts.
The same thing happened to me last month. I left on message to call me on mysocialsecurity and they did within 3 mins! The numbers on my calculator were not accurate. She ASSURED me that I would really get 86.6% at 64 and 93.3% at 65 AND gave me the actual amounts.
That is certainly surprisingly good news that you got a call back in 3 minutes. I keep hearing very concerning stories of people getting bad advice from a low level SS employee.
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