This is an old problem, but now it’s easy to see exactly how it affects you and what a change in your earnings history would do to your benefit. Click here to get a downloadable spreadsheet that shows how your benefit is calculated.
The Social Security Administration publishes the complicated rules that go into determining your benefit. If you have a day to kill, you can read them all and figure out what’s going to happen to you.
My Excel file takes the drudgery out of this. Use it to quickly see what your benefit will be if you quit this year and how more it will be if you hang in for another year.
Example: You were born in 1954, started work full-time in 1976 and have been earning at or above the Social Security taxable amount ever since. That amount was $15,300 back then and is now $118,500.
