Calculate Social Security

As we start to age we start thinking about retiring. But trying to calculate what our social security earnings is someone what calculated. It depends on the age we want to retire, the earnings we've had over the years and then there is trying to understand the complex calculation to determine our social security check.

One of the first things you have to calculate is your PIA ... your Primary Insurance Amount. The Social Security Administration provide this statement of what the PIA is: "The PIA is the sum of three separate percentages of portions of average indexed monthly earnings. The portions depend on the year in which a worker attains age 62, becomes disabled before age 62, or dies before attaining age 62."

So what is that in english?

There are many websites that offer to help provide what your social security benefits will be, but often they skip the part where you have to calculate it. Here is the definition: "The Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) simply takes your AIME and multiplies it by three separate “bend points.” So for all Average Indexed Monthly Earnings up to $826, SSA takes 90% of these earnings. For earnings between $826 and $4,980, it takes 32% of these earnings."

You got that?

Here is a site that helps you estimate your value based on the numbers you provide: Social Security Calculator

It's kind of accurate if you provide realistic numbers. That's hard to do.

However, the Social Security Administration has a website that will give you an accurate earnings values based on your earnings history. You can get your earnings values from their website - www.ssa.gov and clicking the 'Sign in' link at the upper right hand corner.



If you are just creating an account you will select "Create an account with Login.gov". It's a little involved but you should go through the process to get logged in.

Once you have done that you can then goto this website which accuratly calculates your benifet based on your earnings and the year you want to retire. Click on this link:

SSA Online Benefits Calculator.

Enter your earnings values, your date of birth and the age you want to retire and press the 'Calculate' button. This will give you a realistic monthly earnings amount you can expect to receive when you retire.