Social Security Calculator
Estimate your Social Security benefit from AIME with the 90/32/15 bend-point formula, your full retirement age, and the early or delayed adjustment.
Social Security Calculator: with the default inputs, estimated monthly benefit is $2,666.
Your highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings divided by 420. Your ssa.gov statement gives it directly.
Sets your full retirement age. Anyone born on 1 January is treated as born the previous year.
Benefits can start at 62 at the earliest; credits stop accruing at 70.
Used for the lifetime total and the break-even against claiming at 62.
At the age you claim, in the dollars of the year you reach 62 — before any future cost-of-living increases.
- Primary insurance amount (benefit at full retirement age)
- $2,665.80
- Your full retirement age
- 67 years
- Adjustment for claiming when you do
- 0%Negative for claiming early, positive for delayed retirement credits.
- Annual benefit
- $31,990
- If you claimed at 62
- $1,866
- If you claimed at full retirement age
- $2,666
- If you claimed at 70
- $3,306
- Total collected by your planning age
- $735,761
- Break-even against claiming at 62
- Age 78 and 8 months — 11 years, 8 months after you start
Assumptions
- Bend points default to the 2026 values of $1,286 and $7,749 from SSA's Federal Register notice published 3 November 2025. They are fixed by the year you reach 62 and are exposed as inputs so a different eligibility year can be entered.
- The PIA formula and its rounding down to the next lower $0.10 follow section 215(a) of the Social Security Act as restated in that notice.
- Full retirement age follows the table at 20 CFR 404.409(a). People born on 1 January are treated as born in the previous year, as SSA does.
- Early-claiming reductions are 20 CFR 404.410(a): 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months, 5/12 of 1% per month beyond. Delayed retirement credits are 20 CFR 404.313(b)(2): 2/3 of 1% per month for those born after 1 January 1943, to age 70.
- Amounts are in the dollars of your eligibility year; no cost-of-living adjustment is applied (the 2026 COLA was 2.8%).
- Spousal and survivor benefits, the retirement earnings test, the Windfall Elimination Provision, the Government Pension Offset and federal income tax on benefits are all outside the model.
- Eligibility requires 40 quarters of coverage; the calculator does not check whether you have them.
| Claim at | Monthly | Annual | Adjustment | Total to age 90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | $1,866 | $22,392 | -30% | $626,976 |
| 63 | $1,999 | $23,992 | -25% | $647,773 |
| 64 | $2,133 | $25,591 | -20% | $665,371 |
| 65 | $2,310 | $27,724 | -13.33% | $693,090 |
| 66 | $2,488 | $29,856 | -6.67% | $716,544 |
| 67 | $2,666 | $31,990 | 0% | $735,761 |
| 68 | $2,879 | $34,548 | 8% | $760,056 |
| 69 | $3,092 | $37,108 | 16% | $779,260 |
| 70 | $3,306 | $39,666 | 24% | $793,320 |
Reductions and credits are applied per 20 CFR 404.410(a) and 404.313(b)(2). No cost-of-living adjustment is included.
How this is worked out
The formula
PIA = 90% × min(AIME, bend 1)
+ 32% × (min(AIME, bend 2) − bend 1)
+ 15% × (AIME − bend 2), rounded down to the next lower $0.10
2026 bend points: $1,286 and $7,749 (fixed by the year you reach 62)
Claiming before full retirement age: reduce by 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months, then 5/12 of 1% per month
Claiming after full retirement age: add 2/3 of 1% per month, to age 70Open How it’s calculated above to see this worked through with your own numbers.
What you enter
- Average indexed monthly earnings (AIME)
- Your highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings divided by 420. Your ssa.gov statement gives it directly.in dollars · 0 or more · defaults to 6000
- Year of birth
- Sets your full retirement age. Anyone born on 1 January is treated as born the previous year.from 1930 to 2010 · whole numbers only · defaults to 1964
- Age you claim
- Benefits can start at 62 at the earliest; credits stop accruing at 70.from 62 to 70 · whole numbers only · defaults to 67
- …plus extra months(under More options)
- Claiming at 67 and 6 months, for example.from 0 to 11 · whole numbers only · defaults to 0
- Plan to age
- Used for the lifetime total and the break-even against claiming at 62.from 63 to 120 · whole numbers only · defaults to 90
- First bend point (2026)(under More options)
- Fixed by the year you turn 62. The 2026 value is $1,286; change it if you reach 62 in a different year.in dollars · 1 or more · defaults to 1286
- Second bend point (2026)(under More options)
- The 2026 value is $7,749.in dollars · 2 or more · defaults to 7749
What you get back
- Estimated monthly benefitmain answer
- At the age you claim, in the dollars of the year you reach 62 — before any future cost-of-living increases.
- Primary insurance amount (benefit at full retirement age)
- Your full retirement age
- Adjustment for claiming when you do
- Negative for claiming early, positive for delayed retirement credits.
- Annual benefit
- If you claimed at 62
- If you claimed at full retirement age
- If you claimed at 70
- Total collected by your planning age
- Break-even against claiming at 62
What this assumes
- Bend points default to the 2026 values of $1,286 and $7,749 from SSA's Federal Register notice published 3 November 2025. They are fixed by the year you reach 62 and are exposed as inputs so a different eligibility year can be entered.
- The PIA formula and its rounding down to the next lower $0.10 follow section 215(a) of the Social Security Act as restated in that notice.
- Full retirement age follows the table at 20 CFR 404.409(a). People born on 1 January are treated as born in the previous year, as SSA does.
- Early-claiming reductions are 20 CFR 404.410(a): 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months, 5/12 of 1% per month beyond. Delayed retirement credits are 20 CFR 404.313(b)(2): 2/3 of 1% per month for those born after 1 January 1943, to age 70.
- Amounts are in the dollars of your eligibility year; no cost-of-living adjustment is applied (the 2026 COLA was 2.8%).
- Spousal and survivor benefits, the retirement earnings test, the Windfall Elimination Provision, the Government Pension Offset and federal income tax on benefits are all outside the model.
- Eligibility requires 40 quarters of coverage; the calculator does not check whether you have them.
About this calculator
Social Security's benefit formula is public and completely mechanical. Take your average indexed monthly earnings — your highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings divided by 420 — and run them through three brackets: 90% of the first slice, 32% of the middle, 15% of the rest. The result is your primary insurance amount, the benefit payable at full retirement age. Everything after that is timing.
This is an estimate. It reproduces SSA's published formula faithfully, but it has no access to your earnings record, and your earnings record is what actually decides the number. The statement in your account at ssa.gov is the authoritative figure. Use this to understand how the pieces move; use ssa.gov for the answer.
Bend points belong to a birth year, not to today
The 2026 bend points are $1,286 and $7,749 — set out in SSA's own Federal Register notice for 2026. They are frozen for you in the year you turn 62, and indexed to national average wages for everyone younger. If you reach 62 after 2026, your bend points will be higher; the calculator lets you override both under More options, and warns you when your birth year implies a later eligibility year.
The three brackets are why Social Security replaces so much more income at the bottom than the top: the first $1,286 of monthly indexed earnings is replaced at 90 cents on the dollar, and everything above $7,749 at 15.
The timing decision
Full retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later, and steps down through 66-and-some-months for the years before. Claiming early cuts the benefit by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond — a permanent 30% cut at 62 against a 67 full retirement age. Waiting adds 2/3 of 1% a month, 8% a year, until 70 and not a month longer.
The break-even line tells you how long you must live for a later claim to pay more in total than claiming at 62. It typically lands somewhere in the late seventies to early eighties. That framing is incomplete, though: delaying is best understood not as a bet but as the cheapest inflation-indexed longevity insurance available anywhere, and the people it protects are the ones who live a very long time.
Where this breaks down
The model prices one worker's retirement benefit. Spousal and survivor benefits — often the larger consideration for a married couple, since the higher earner's delay raises the survivor's benefit for life — are not modelled. Nor is the retirement earnings test, which withholds benefits if you work while collecting before full retirement age (and credits them back afterwards), the Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset rules for non-covered pensions, or the federal taxation of benefits, which reaches up to 85% of them for higher-income households. Amounts are in the dollars of the year you reach 62; the annual cost-of-living increase, 2.8% for 2026, is not applied.
Frequently asked questions
▸What are the Social Security bend points for 2026?
$1,286 and $7,749. The primary insurance amount is 90% of the first $1,286 of average indexed monthly earnings, plus 32% of the amount between $1,286 and $7,749, plus 15% above that — from SSA's Federal Register notice 'Cost-of-Living Increase and Other Determinations for 2026'.
▸What is my full retirement age?
67 if you were born in 1960 or later. It steps down for earlier years: 66 and 10 months for 1959, 66 and 8 months for 1958, and so on to 66 for 1943–1954, per 20 CFR 404.409(a). Anyone born on 1 January is treated as born in the previous year.
▸How much less do I get if I claim at 62?
Benefits are reduced by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months before full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% for each additional month. With a full retirement age of 67 that is exactly 30% — permanently, not just until you reach 67.
▸How much more do I get by waiting until 70?
Two-thirds of 1% for every month past full retirement age, or 8% a year, up to age 70. From a full retirement age of 67 that is 24% more than the primary insurance amount, and about 77% more than claiming at 62.
▸Is this the same number SSA will pay me?
No. This applies SSA's published formula to the AIME you enter, so it is only as good as that figure. SSA computes AIME from your actual reported earnings, indexes them to national average wages, and applies rules this model does not — the earnings test, WEP and GPO, spousal and survivor entitlements. Check ssa.gov/myaccount.
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