How is the Social Security benefit calculated?

The benefit starts from your Primary Insurance Amount: 90% of AIME up to $1,226, plus 32% from $1,226 to $7,391, plus 15% above that. An AIME of $6,000 gives a PIA of about $2,631 a month at full retirement age 67.

How much less do I get for claiming at 62?

Claiming 60 months early cuts the benefit by 30% — 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months plus 5/12 of 1% for the remaining 24. So a $2,631 PIA drops to about $1,842 a month if claimed at 62.

How much more do I get for waiting until 70?

Delaying past full retirement age earns 8% a year (2/3 of 1% per month) up to age 70. Waiting from 67 to 70 adds 24%, raising a $2,631 PIA to about $3,263 a month.

What is AIME and where do I find it?

Average Indexed Monthly Earnings is your highest 35 years of wages, indexed for wage growth and averaged per month. You do not need to compute it by hand — your personalized AIME and benefit estimate appear in your statement at ssa.gov.

What is the Social Security Benefit Estimator?

Estimate your monthly Social Security retirement benefit from your average indexed monthly earnings using the 2026 bend-point formula (90% / 32% / 15%) and adjust for claiming early (reduced) or late (delayed credits) relative to full retirement age 67. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Social Security Benefit Estimator

Name: Social Security Benefit Estimator
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Your Social Security retirement benefit is built from your lifetime earnings and then adjusted for the age you claim. This estimator applies the 2026 bend-point formula to your average indexed monthly earnings and shows how much you would receive each month claiming anywhere from 62 to 70.

How it works

The Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) is computed in three tiers from your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME):

PIA = 0.90 * min(AIME, 1226)
    + 0.32 * (min(AIME, 7391) − 1226, floored at 0)
    + 0.15 * (AIME − 7391, floored at 0)

The PIA is the benefit at full retirement age 67. Claiming earlier reduces it by 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% per month beyond that. Claiming later adds delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% per month (8% a year) up to age 70.

Understanding the bend-point structure

The three-tier formula is deliberately progressive: the 90% rate on the first tier means low earners replace a large fraction of their working income, while high earners receive a progressively smaller proportion of each additional dollar. The bend points themselves ($1,226 and $7,391 in 2026) are adjusted each year by the SSA as average wages change, which is why using current values matters.

For someone with an AIME below the first bend point — roughly an AIME under about $1,226 — almost 90 cents of every dollar of average earnings translates directly into monthly benefit. For a higher earner with an AIME above $7,391, the third tier adds only 15 cents per dollar of AIME above that threshold.

Worked examples with the age adjustment

With an AIME of $6,000 (for illustration):

PIA = 0.90 × 1,226 + 0.32 × (6,000 − 1,226) + 0
    = 1,103.40 + 1,527.68
    = 2,631 per month at age 67

If you claim at 62 — five years (60 months) before full retirement age — the reduction is 30%, giving roughly $1,842 per month. That reduction is permanent for the life of the benefit.

If you claim at 70 — three years (36 months) of delayed credits — you earn 24% more than the PIA, giving roughly $3,263 per month. The break-even point between claiming at 62 versus 70 falls roughly in the mid-70s; living beyond that age, the late-claiming strategy produces a larger lifetime total.

If you claim exactly at 67, you receive the full PIA with no adjustment applied in either direction.

Practical notes on what this tool does not model

This is an illustrative estimate. It does not apply:

Cost-of-living adjustments (COLA): Benefits rise annually with inflation after you claim, which improves the lifetime value of waiting.
The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP): If you receive a pension from work not covered by Social Security, your PIA is reduced by a separate formula.
The Government Pension Offset (GPO): Affects spousal and survivor benefits for government employees.
The earnings test: Claiming before full retirement age while still working can temporarily reduce your benefit.
Spousal and survivor benefits: These follow separate rules and can significantly affect the optimal claiming age for married couples.

Your official personalized statement, including your actual AIME, is available at ssa.gov. Use this tool to understand the formula and explore claiming-age trade-offs; use ssa.gov for your real numbers.