Have you ever wondered what your Social Security benefit payments will be during retirement? Years ago, the Social Security Administration (SSA) mailed an annual statement to everyone, so that US citizens would have an idea of their benefits. Now, for budget reasons, SSA only mails a statement to people who are older than age 60, don’t have an online account, and are not receiving benefits. The good news is that you can check your benefits anytime if you have an online SSA account.
The benefits of having an online account with SSA and checking your SS annual statement are:
- You can check your earnings history to make sure SSA has everything recorded correctly. Did you know that your SS benefits are calculated by using an inflation adjusted average of your top 35 years of earnings history? If your earnings are somehow inaccurate, then your benefit would be impacted.
- When you login to SSA.gov, you can also get an estimate of what your benefits will be at your full retirement age (age 67 for most people now retiring). Once you have this estimate, send it to us so that we can incorporate the Social Security income estimate into your retirement plan!
Note: For people who already have an SSA account (use “My Social Security Account” to login), the SSA is retiring that login method this year. New users and existing users will be required to login in the future using Login.gov or ID.me. See this post from SSA about how to setup your new login credentials:
https://blog.ssa.gov/how-to-transition-your-social-security-account-to-login-gov/