How Your 35 Top-Earning Years Affect Your Social Security Benefit

Many people know they can start Social Security benefits at age 62, but fewer understand how those payments are actually determined.

The Social Security Administration looks at your 35 highest-earning work years to calculate your benefit. If you worked fewer than 35 years, the missing years are counted as zeros, which lowers your average. Understanding that rule can help you think more strategically about when to claim benefits and how to potentially increase them.

How the 35-year rule works

The agency totals your earnings from your 35 best-paying years and uses them to compute your average indexed monthly earnings, or AIME. That number is then used to set your benefit amount. The Social Security Administration explains the AIME formula in detail on its website.

Only income that was subject to Social Security payroll taxes counts toward the calculation. Earnings above the annual taxable maximum do not raise your benefit.

Why low-earning years and gaps matter

Years with little income, as well as years when you did not work at all, can reduce your average because they are treated as zeros in the formula. Time away from the workforce to care for family, periods of unemployment, or early retirement can all affect the size of your future Social Security check.

On the other hand, working beyond 35 years can help replace lower-earning or zero years with higher-earning ones. Many people earn more later in their careers than they did early on, so those additional years may improve their eventual benefit.

What workers can do

Your entire work history can influence your Social Security benefit, but there are ways to strengthen it. Earning more later in your career, whether through a raise, a new job, or part-time work, can help offset earlier low-earning years.

You can also continue working past 35 years so that lower-earning years may be replaced by stronger ones. In addition, staying on the job can give you more flexibility to delay claiming benefits, which can increase your monthly payment. You may begin collecting as early as age 62, but waiting until full retirement age, generally 66 or 67, results in a larger benefit. Delaying until age 70 increases it further, after which no additional delayed-retirement credits are added.

Social Security is about more than what you earn in the present. Knowing how the system works can help you decide when to retire and when to file for benefits.