SS Question - over 70 (benefit, place, year, years)
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I’ve read it’s best to avoid zero years. I managed to have $20 in one year but index with inflation, it will turn into $1000 in today’s dollar. I take it.
Um, no, that is not even close to how it works.
If you have $20 in one year, you did not even earn enough to qualify for a credit, so that doesn't even count.
In 1978 you had to earn at least $50 in one three-month calendar quarter to qualify for a credit.
The minimum earnings have since increased. It's around $1,320 per three-month calendar quarter to earn a credit now.
To earn your 40 credits, you have to earn a minimum amount each calendar quarter to qualify, and if you don't, then it doesn't count.
At federal minimum wage, you'd have to work a part-time job around 16 hours per week for 12 straight weeks to qualify for a credit.
Each year we review the records for all Social Security recipients who work. If your latest year of earnings turns out to be one of your highest years, we refigure your benefit and pay you any increase due. This is an automatic process, and benefits are paid in December of the following year.
There are two reasons why that might happen.
My mother has 76 years, works, and her benefits increase every year, but that's because she only had a 20 year work history when she took benefits at age 70. She plans on working until age 80, and that will give her a 30 year work history, and her benefits will increase because of that.
The only other reason is that higher wages kick out lower years of wages.
Understand I'm talking about indexed wages here, not nominal wages.
90% of people will not see substantial increases in their benefits, literally we're talking about a few dollars per month, unless their wages they are earning are higher than their highest year's earnings.
It's just simple math.
The amount you receive when you first get benefits sets the base for the amount you will receive for the rest of your life.
If you applied in 2018, your base amount is 90% of $895 or $805/month.
That's the base amount for the rest of your life. That will never change.
If you apply in 2019, your base amount will be 90% of $926 or $833/month and that amount will never change for the rest of your life.
The only thing that is recalculated is the 2nd bend point, which is fixed to the year you retired.
If you retired in 2018, that will always be $896 to $5,397.
If your average monthly wage is $2,400, you get 32% of that or $768. If you can increase your average monthly wage to $2,500, then you'd get $800, or an extra $32 per month.
But, increasing your average monthly wage is a lot harder than it sounds, and you can really only do it if you had very low wages early on in your career, or you worked part-time for a number of years (common for married women) or had no wages at all.
You should probably set up a spread-sheet and work it out. If you're working because you like it, or need the extra income, no issue there, but if you think it will increase your benefits, it most likely will not.
Good explanation. When does social security update an individual's wages on the social security website?
If you are not collecting, then the we site numbers are updated twice a year, once in early December to notify of the increase due to COLA, and again in the April time frame, when it updates based on the previous years earnings. Once you are collecting, those calculations are not available on their website. You simply get a letter in December of the increase. And possibly another if you are working and collecting.
I've been keeping track of when my previous years earnings have shown up on my SS statement since 2014. I didn't check 2014 until May and they were posted. In 2015, 2017 and 2018 they were posted between March 9th and 11th. In 2016 it was April 3rd.
Now granted, I don't check every day so I can't say exactly when they were posted. All I can say is they were already posted by the days above.
Good explanation. When does social security update an individual's wages on the social security website?
It's a few months as other posted explained.
Very large corporate and non-corporate employers transmit data electronically to the IRS and SSA, but smaller employers either don't have that technology or can't afford it. I suspect that at some point in the future, all employers will be required to transmit data electronically.
Where it isn't transmitted electronically, the W-2s are scanned and the data captured electronically using OCR. It's a time consuming process and still takes several months.
However, your benefit calculation won't be updated for almost a year.
If you worked in 2018, your benefits won't be updated until late November-early December 2019, and you won't actually get paid until January 2020, because benefits are always one month behind.
Working will never decrease your benefits, unless you filed for benefits before reaching full retirement age and continue to work, because there's a maximum amount you can early annually, before they start reducing your benefits.
If you're already at full retirement age, you can earn as much as you want.
If you want to calculate your benefits, or see how working will increase your benefits, there's an Excel spreadsheet attached that will do that for you.
All you have to enter is your total Social Security Wages for the years (your Social Security Wages are obtained from your W-2 and may be different than your actual total wages for the year).
You can make changes to the wage index as it changes over the years, and make changes to the Primary Insurance Amount and 2nd Bend Point as those change every year, too.
Remember, once you file for benefits at full retirement age or later, and you continue to work, your PIA, 2nd Bend Point and Wage Index Year never change. The only thing you can change is higher wages replacing years of lower wages. That may or may not affect your average monthly wage, but you can calculate to see if it will, and by how much.
your ss is based on your 35 inflation adjusted highest years .
there is no point waiting past 70 because there is little chance that you will ever go up enough by bouncing lower years to offset the checks you are giving up at that point . there are no more delayed credits going up 8% a year to help you .
Not sure about the person you are responding to but it is worth clarifying that your answer applies to a person who already has 35 working years in at age 70. Many, especially woman who were stay at home mom's for many years may not have 35 or close to 35 years at age 70.
Your PIA, bend points and index do not change once you file at any time, not just FRA or later. And the PIA adjustment index multipliers are fixed in the first year that you are entirely age 61 or older. So yes, the gains, even for deleting zeros, past age 62, are less than pre 62.
Not sure about the person you are responding to but it is worth clarifying that your answer applies to a person who already has 35 working years in at age 70. Many, especially woman who were stay at home mom's for many years may not have 35 or close to 35 years at age 70.
There still would be no point in delaying even if they are still working. Delaying until 70 allows credits to build. Those credits stop accruing at age 70. If they continue to work and any new income replaces lower or zero income years, then SS will recalculate and increase the monthly SS check each year that occurs. But this has nothing to do with the credits which stop, regardless of whether you are working or not, at age 70.
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