Calculating Social Security benefit

[corn18]

I am just checking to make sure I am calculating my SS benefits correctly.

I used anypia and entered my earnings. I also put in my military time, which adds a whopping $20/mo to my PIA. Anypia spits out a PIA of $2,882. I also use a boglehead spreadsheet that calculates PIA and it agrees with anypia. Since this is the most important number, I want to make sure it is right. My earnings are entered from my SSA data. They stop in 2021, my final year of working.

I plan to take SS @ age 70. My math says that would be PIA * 124% = $3,573 / mo or $42,884 / year.

My wife has no earnings on her own record. We plan to have her take her spousal benefits @ age 67 (FRA). For some reason, opensocialsecurity.com says she should take it at 66 years, 7 months. Not sure why that is. If she spousal benefits @ age 67 (FRA), she should get my PIA * 50% = $1,441 / mo or $17,292 / year.

I also bounced this off the max family benefit number. My SSA and anypia show that to be $5,045 / mo ($60,539 / year). Our benefit would be $5,014 / mo ($60,168/ year). So we are close on that, but just below.

The math is fairly simple once I know the PIA. Would appreciate feedback to make sure I am not missing something that would bite me 15 years from now.

Thanks,

Corn

 

[SALTedOut]

I may be wrong but I thought a spouse could not claim spousal benefits until the wage earner claims his/her benefits. Is your spouse 3 years younger than you?

 

[Dtail]

You could also use this easy to use official SS site and call it a day.

https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/estimator.html

 

[corn18]

I may be wrong but I thought a spouse could not claim spousal benefits until the wage earner claims his/her benefits. Is your spouse 3 years younger than you?

4 years younger.

 

[corn18]

You could also use this easy to use official SS site and call it a day.

https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/estimator.html

I used anypia from the SSA site which is much more comprehensive.

 

[Dtail]

I used anypia from the SSA site which is much more comprehensive.

True, true.

 

[SecondCor521]

Again, to riff on the same idea on this thread as well, what you can do is go to the SS website and see what they say your age 70 benefit is now - just the basic number that they give out to everyone, not the fancy anypia or anything.

You working another year will make it go up, but since your benefit is already pretty high, it won't go up by that much.

You stopping work in 2021 will make it go down, but not as much as you might think, unless you're *really* young and/or have a *really* short SS history.

The above two will cancel each other out a bit.

I don't know if the basic number is inflation adjusted in the same way that your anypia numbers are. If you have a number of years until you hit 70 that could affect things. But you could at least eyeball the numbers and see if they make sense.

 

[corn18]

Again, to riff on the same idea on this thread as well, what you can do is go to the SS website and see what they say your age 70 benefit is now - just the basic number that they give out to everyone, not the fancy anypia or anything.

You working another year will make it go up, but since your benefit is already pretty high, it won't go up by that much.

You stopping work in 2021 will make it go down, but not as much as you might think, unless you're *really* young and/or have a *really* short SS history.

The above two will cancel each other out a bit.

I don't know if the basic number is inflation adjusted in the same way that your anypia numbers are. If you have a number of years until you hit 70 that could affect things. But you could at least eyeball the numbers and see if they make sense.

My SSA says my PIA would be $3,171 @ 67, but it assumes I work until age 67 and max out SS like I have for many years. I am way past the second bend point, so working longer does not add much. I can't force it to stop work @ 55 unless I am missing something. That's why I use anypia. At least $2882 and $3171 are close.

 

[Dtail]

My SSA says my PIA would be $3,171 @ 67, but it assumes I work until age 67 and max out SS like I have for many years. I am way past the second bend point, so working longer does not add much. I can't force it to stop work @ 55 unless I am missing something. That's why I use anypia. At least $2882 and $3171 are close.

I know the site I provided you is more simple, but you can adjust your earnings to zero from now until age XXX and receive a more accurate number.

 

[SecondCor521]

^ Well, you at least have a sanity check. The fact that $2882 is somewhat lower than the $3171 number makes sense, both in the "somewhat" (because past second bend) and "lower" (because shorter work history).

The other way to do it, which may not be very helpful, is to go ahead and quit working in 2021. After a year or two, SS will notice the $0 income and adjust your benefit calculations to reflect $0 income from then until age 67 or age 70 or whatever. And you can then get the basic number from them that will be pretty much correct.

The not so helpful aspect of that is that you have to go ahead and quit and wait a year or so. Which doesn't give you warm fuzzies in advance of the situation. But maybe better than a kick in the pants, as my Dad would say.

 

[Dtail]

If one is past the second bend/>55 y.o. at retirement/maximizing most work years SS benefits, then the reduction in yearly amounts can be less than 1k.

 

[corn18]

If one is past the second bend/>55 y.o. at retirement/maximizing most work years SS benefits, then the reduction in yearly amounts can be less than 1k.

Spot on. In my case, working an extra year nets me $655 more / year for myself. It's $918 more a year if I include spousal benefits.

 

[teej1985]

^ Well, you at least have a sanity check. The fact that $2882 is somewhat lower than the $3171 number makes sense, both in the "somewhat" (because past second bend) and "lower" (because shorter work history).

The other way to do it, which may not be very helpful, is to go ahead and quit working in 2021. After a year or two, SS will notice the $0 income and adjust your benefit calculations to reflect $0 income from then until age 67 or age 70 or whatever. And you can then get the basic number from them that will be pretty much correct.

The not so helpful aspect of that is that you have to go ahead and quit and wait a year or so. Which doesn't give you warm fuzzies in advance of the situation. But maybe better than a kick in the pants, as my Dad would say.

It is completely unnecessary to wait on the SSA to catch up. Just go to ssa.tools and input your numbers....

 

[corn18]

It is completely unnecessary to wait on the SSA to catch up. Just go to ssa.tools and input your numbers....

Ok, it finally sunk in to try the ssa tools site. That is very handy! It matches everything I have and says my PIA is $2,867 vs anypia which is $2882. The difference is my 20 years of military service which anypia account for. Yeah! I think I have a good PIA and everything else just flows from that.

 

[SecondCor521]

It is completely unnecessary to wait on the SSA to catch up. Just go to ssa.tools and input your numbers....

I know.

I've been endeavoring to give @corn18 the absolute simplest way to do things because they are concerned about complications leading to inaccurate results. Your way is probably more accurate *if done correctly*; my way is less accurate *but less subject to input error* which is @corn18's primary concern.

 

[corn18]

I know.

I've been endeavoring to give @corn18 the absolute simplest way to do things because they are concerned about complications leading to inaccurate results. Your way is probably more accurate *if done correctly*; my way is less accurate *but less subject to input error* which is @corn18's primary concern.

Using SSA tools is almost foolproof because you copy and paste your earnings record directly from My SSA. I have to enter all of that manually in anypia and my spreadsheet. This direct method resulted in the same number as the other two methods, so my confidence is high that it is correct.