How to find out what your social security benefits are

Online Benefits Calculator (En español)

The Online Calculator below allows you to estimate your Social Security benefit. To use the Online Calculator, you need to enter all your earnings from your online Social Security Statement.

If you have a personal my Social Security account, you can get an estimate of your future retirement benefits and see the effects of different retirement age scenarios. If you don’t have a personal my Social Security account, create one at www.ssa.gov/myaccount.

If you receive a pension that is based on work not covered by Social Security, (e.g. federal, state, or local government employees) it may reduce the amount of benefits we can pay you. Please use the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) version of the Online Calculator to estimate your benefits. If you are eligible for benefits as a spouse, widow, or widower our Government Pension Offset (GPO) Calculator, can tell you how your benefits may be affected. Also, if you begin receiving benefits before your full retirement age (FRA), your benefits will be reduced. Find your FRA with our Retirement Age Calculator.

Please Note:

The Online Calculator is updated periodically* with new benefit increases and other benefit amounts. Therefore, it is likely that your benefit estimates in the future will differ from those calculated today.
The Online Calculator works on PCs and Macs with Javascript enabled.
Some browsers may not allow you to print the table below.

*The most recent calculator update was in July 2022.

The Online Calculator temporarily stores information on your local computer while your browser is open. To protect your personal information, you should close your browser after you have finished your estimate.

To protect your records from unauthorized users, the Online Calculator is not linked to your record of earnings in our database. Instead, we ask you to insert your earnings in the calculator. Keep in mind that it’s easier and faster to get your estimate by creating a personal my Social Security account, that links your earnings record directly from our database.

Note: If your birthday is on January 1st, we figure your benefit as if your birthday was in the previous year.

If you qualify for benefits as a Survivor, your full retirement age for survivors benefits may be different.

Date of birth

Enter your date of birth as month, day, and year, separated by slashes. (Example: If you were born on May 7, 1950, enter 5/7/1950.)

Age at retirement

Enter the age in years and months at which you plan to stop working. Your earnings are assumed to stop at that age.

Note: This calculator will accept a stop-work age up to 85. If the age you enter is less than 62, we estimate your benefit at age 62. If the age you enter is at least 62, we use that age when we estimate your benefit.

years and months

Today's dollars or future dollars

Your estimated benefit is shown in today's dollars, unless you choose to have it shown in future (inflated) dollars. If you choose future (inflated) dollars, the calculator bases the results on our estimates of how inflation could affect your benefit amount. (Use caution when using inflated dollar estimates to determine other retirement income sources you may need.)

Earnings in 2022

Enter the amount you expect to earn in 2022.

Earnings in 2023 and later

Enter the amount you expect to earn in 2023. The calculator will use this same amount of earnings for each future year up to the year you expect to stop working.

Calculate

Press this button when you have entered all your information. Your estimated monthly benefits will be presented below.

Retirement Planning

If you have an estimate of your monthly Social Security retirement benefit (in future, inflated dollars), you can use the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), Ballpark E$timate Online, to get a basic idea of how much you need to save before you retire.

Note: If your Online Calculator retirement benefit estimate is in "today's dollars," you can still use the Online Calculator. Just go back to "Today's dollars or future dollars," select "future (inflated) dollars" and press the "Calculate Benefit" button to update your estimate.

Summary
Social Security benefits are typically computed using "average indexed monthly earnings." This average summarizes up to 35 years of a worker's indexed earnings. We apply a formula to this average to compute the primary insurance amount (PIA). The PIA is the basis for the benefits that are paid to an individual.

The formula used to compute the PIA reflects changes in general wage levels, as measured by the national average wage index. We have constructed examples to illustrate how retirement benefits are calculated.

Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME)
When we compute an insured worker's benefit, we first adjust or "index" his or her earnings to reflect the change in general wage levels that occurred during the worker's years of employment. Such indexation ensures that a worker's future benefits reflect the general rise in the standard of living that occurred during his or her working lifetime.

Up to 35 years of earnings are needed to compute average indexed monthly earnings. After we determine the number of years, we choose those years with the highest indexed earnings, sum such indexed earnings, and divide the total amount by the total number of months in those years. We then round the resulting average amount down to the next lower dollar amount. The result is the AIME.

An insured worker becomes eligible for retirement benefits when he or she reaches age 62. If 2023 were the year of eligibility, we would divide the national average wage index for 2021 (60,575.07) by the national average wage index for each year prior to 2021 in which the worker had earnings and multiply each such ratio by the worker's earnings. This would give the indexed earnings for each year prior to 2021. We would consider any earnings in or after 2021 at face value, without indexing. Then we would compute the AIME and use this amount in computing the worker's primary insurance amount for 2023.

Primary Insurance Amounts
The PIA is the sum of three separate percentages of portions of the AIME. While the percentages of this PIA formula are fixed by law, the dollar amounts in the formula change annually with changes in the national average wage index. These dollar amounts, called "bend points," govern the portions of the AIME.

The bend points in the year 2023 PIA formula, $1,115 and $6,721, apply for workers becoming eligible in 2023. See the table of bend points for the bend points applicable in past years.

For example, a person who had maximum-taxable earnings in each year since age 22, and who retires at age 62 in 2023, would have an AIME equal to $12,427. Based on this AIME amount and the bend points $1,115 and $6,721, the PIA would equal $3,653.30. This person would receive a reduced benefit based on the $3,653.30 PIA. The first COLA this individual could receive is the one effective for December 2023. See the monthly benefit amount for this example and other examples with maximum-taxable earnings.

Monthly Benefit Amounts
Monthly retirement benefits derived from the PIA may be higher or lower than the PIA. We pay reduced benefits to one who retires before his/her normal retirement age. A person cannot collect retirement benefits before age 62. In the case of a person retiring at exactly age 62 in 2023, the benefit will be 25 percent less than the person's PIA.

Benefits can be higher than the PIA if one retires after the normal retirement age. The credit given for delayed retirement will gradually reach 8 percent per year for those born after 1942. A table illustrates the complex interaction among normal retirement age, actuarial reduction, and delayed retirement credit. No delayed retirement credit is given after age 69.

Other Benefits
In addition to retirement benefits, Social Security pays several other types of benefits. For example, Social Security pays benefits to disabled workers who meet medical and insured requirements. Benefits paid to disabled workers and their families may be reduced for receipt of certain public disability benefits (such as Workers' Compensation). In such cases, disability benefits are redetermined triennially.

Benefits to family members may be limited by a family maximum benefit.

Two other methods for computing retirement benefits were common in the past, but today have very limited applicability.