Whether you retire early or past normal retirement age, you want to maximize the amount of money you receive through Social Security benefits.
While cost-of-living increases increase benefits by 3.2% in 2024, there’s still a cap on the amount you’re eligible to receive each month, depending on when you start receiving benefits and how long you’ve worked.
We’ll tell you the maximum amount you can get from Social Security each month in retirement, and how much it will take to get there. For more information, see the Social Security payment schedule below and information about how to lose Social Security benefits.
How much Social Security benefit can I receive each month?
The maximum amount of Social Security benefits you can receive each month depends in part on when you decide to start receiving benefits. (Know that you can retire and delay taking benefits.) For 2024, here are the age factors for when you start collecting retirement benefits.
62 years old: $2,710 per month.
65 to 67 years old (your full retirement age): $3,822 per month.
70 years old: $4,873 per month.
Your age for full retirement benefits depends on your date of birth. For example, if you were born in 1960 or later, your full retirement age is 67.
How much do I have to earn over my lifetime to receive the maximum benefit amount?
In addition to the age you begin receiving benefits, the Social Security Administration considers your highest earnings within 35 years to determine your benefits.
For example, by 2024, if you want to receive the maximum Social Security amount in retirement, you’ll need to earn at least $168,800 per year, an increase of $8,400 from last year.
The maximum taxable amount changes every year, so it may be different when you retire. For example, in 2003 (20 years ago), the taxable maximum was $87,000, and in 2022 it is $147,000. Note that earnings above the annual cap are not taxed and are not included in your overall income.
Will my Social Security maximum change when COLA increases?
If there is a Cost of Living Adjustment (or COLA for short), your check can be expected to increase each month. In 2023, we saw record growth of 8.7%, and in 2024, due to inflation, growth was 3.2%.
For more information, here’s why you might want to pause your Social Security benefits now to get more money later.
