Retirement
Social Security Estimator
Get a rough monthly benefit at 62, at your full retirement age and at 70, plus the age where waiting catches up.
A rough estimate. It treats your earnings figure as 35 full years of work, capped at the $184,500 wage base, and uses 2026 formula figures in today’s dollars. Your real number is on your my Social Security statement at ssa.gov.
Heads up: the 2026 benefit-formula figures in this tool (the bend points) are still waiting on our check against SSA’s published table. Read the results as approximate until this note is gone.
What this means
Claiming at 67 works out to roughly $2,212 a month. The range is wide: $1,548 at 62 up to $2,743 at 70, for life, with yearly cost-of-living raises on top of whichever you lock in.
Waiting from 62 to 70 means giving up 8 years of checks for a bigger one. The bigger check catches up in total around age 80 and 4 months, and waiting from 62 to 67 catches up around 78 and 8 months. If you expect to live past that, waiting tends to pay more over your life. Health, savings, and a spouse's benefit matter too.
This is a rough estimate. Your actual record, with every year you worked, is on your my Social Security statement at ssa.gov.
These are estimates to help you think, not personalized legal, tax, or investment advice, and not a promise of any result.
This calculator gives a rough estimate of your monthly Social Security retirement benefit. Enter your average yearly earnings in today's dollars, the year you were born and the age you'd claim, and it shows your benefit at 62, at your full retirement age, at 70 and at the age you picked, plus the age where waiting catches up.
Why it matters: when you claim is one of the biggest retirement decisions most people make, and it's permanent. Claiming early means a smaller check for life; waiting means a bigger one, but fewer of them. Seeing both in dollars makes the trade-off concrete. For your real number, built from your actual work record, log in to my Social Security at ssa.gov.
How to use it
Enter your average earnings
Your typical yearly pay over your working life, in today's dollars. If your pay has been fairly steady, your current salary is a reasonable stand-in. Earnings above the Social Security wage base don't count.
Enter your birth year
Your full retirement age depends on your birth year, and every reduction or increase is measured from it.
Pick a claiming age and compare
Move it between 62 and 70 and watch the monthly amount change. Then look at the break-even age: if you expect to live well past it, waiting tends to pay more over your lifetime.
Behind the numbers
The formula favors lower earners
Social Security averages your top 35 years of earnings into a monthly figure, then pays 90% of the first slice, 32% of the middle slice and 15% of the rest. So it replaces a bigger share of pay for people who earn less.
Claiming early or late changes the check for life
Claim before your full retirement age and the benefit is permanently reduced. Wait past it and you earn delayed credits that raise it, but those credits stop at 70, so there's no gain in waiting longer than that.
Why this is only a rough estimate
The real calculation uses each year of your earnings history, indexed for wage growth, and counts zeros for any of your 35 years without work. This tool assumes 35 full years at one level. Fewer working years or a steep career climb would make your real benefit lower than shown.
The math behind it
Your yearly earnings, capped at the wage base, divided by 12 gives your average monthly earnings. The formula pays a set percentage of three slices of that, which gives your full benefit at full retirement age. Claiming early reduces it by 5/9 of 1% a month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% after that. Each year you delay past full retirement age adds 8%, up to 70.
Worked example
Suppose you've earned about $60,000 a year over your career, which is $5,000 a month. Under the 2026 formula you get 90% of the first $1,286 and 32% of the next $3,714, about $2,345 a month at full retirement age. For example, with a full retirement age of 67, claiming at 62 cuts that by 30% and waiting to 70 raises it by 24%.
Break-even around 80
For example, with a full retirement age of 67, the total collected by waiting until 70 usually catches up with claiming at 62 around age 80. Live past that and waiting paid more; die before it and claiming early did.
Common questions
What is my full retirement age?
It depends on your birth year: 66 for people born 1943 through 1954, rising by two months a year to 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. The calculator works it out from the year you enter.
Should I claim at 62 or wait?
It depends on your health, your other savings, whether you're still working, and whether a spouse will rely on your benefit. Waiting pays more per month and more in total if you live past the break-even age, and the credits for delaying stop at 70. This calculator shows the trade-off; it doesn't make the decision.
Where do I get my real number?
Create or log in to a my Social Security account at ssa.gov. Your statement there uses your actual earnings record and shows your estimate at different claiming ages.
Does this include cost-of-living raises?
No. Everything is in today's dollars, which is how SSA's own statement presents it. Once you're receiving benefits, they generally rise each year with a cost-of-living adjustment.
Sources & references
Go deeper
The calculator gives you a number. The Social Security & Government Benefits Brick teaches you what to do with it, in plain English. And if you’re not sure where to start, the free BrickScore Assessment checks your whole foundation in about 5 minutes.
first the number, then the move