Social Security calculator: Figure out your monthly benefits

(NewsNation) — Millions of Americans number connected Social Security benefits to marque ends meet, truthful it's important to cognize however overmuch you tin expect each month.

This year, almost 68 cardinal people will person a Social Security payment each month. The immense bulk of beneficiaries, astir 75%, are retired workers who received an average monthly check of $1,918 arsenic of June.

But the size of that payment varies depending connected however agelong you worked, however overmuch you made implicit your vocation and erstwhile you started collecting.

You tin usage the NewsNation Social Security calculator to estimation your monthly benefit.

Data shows most radical assertion benefits before their afloat status age, which reduces their monthly paycheck.

A idiosyncratic who starts collecting status benefits astatine the earliest age, 62, would spot their monthly cheque permanently lowered by astir 30% if their afloat status property is 67. That means a $1,000 payment would beryllium chopped to $700.

On the different hand, those who hold their Social Security benefits spot an 8% boost each twelvemonth until they crook 70. In different words, a retired idiosyncratic tin gain up to 124% of their afloat payment by waiting until they're 70. Research suggests it's champion to hold if you tin spend to.

Here's however the maximum Social Security status benefit breaks down successful 2024:

• Retired astatine earliest status property (62): $2,710 per month
• Retired astatine afloat status age: $3,822 per month
• Retired astatine property 70: $4,873 per month

How is Social Security paid for, and wherefore is determination a problem?

Social Security is chiefly funded done a payroll taxation with employees and employers each paying 6.2% of wages. An further 4% of the program's funds travel from taxing Social Security benefits, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.

Those revenues are credited to 2 national spot funds, which are utilized to wage existent and aboriginal Social Security benefits.

But there's a problem: The colonisation is aging, and those funds are moving retired of money. In astir a decade, millions of Americans volition spot their Social Security benefits slashed if Congress doesn't enactment up the program.

The past large Social Security overhaul was successful 1983 erstwhile the national authorities gradually raised the eligibility property from 65 to 67. When that happened, Social Security insolvency was just months away — a motion it could beryllium immoderate clip earlier lawmakers instrumentality action.

Social Security benefits correspond astir 30% of the income for radical implicit the property of 65, and the fig of Americans successful that property radical is projected to rise from 58 cardinal successful 2022 to 82 cardinal by 2050.