How the calculators work

Every calculator on this site works out its answer in your browser, and the same rules run on our server so the page shows a right answer before the calculator starts. The two are tested against each other on thousands of random cases, and against the Social Security Administration’s own worked examples, which they reproduce to the cent. Nothing you type is stored or sent; an earnings record you paste never leaves your browser tab. All figures were checked against the pages below on October 29, 2026.

Your earnings

• With your pay only, the estimator assumes you earned the same amount in today’s money every year from the age you started work (22 unless you change it): each past year’s pay is your pay times that year’s national average wage index divided by the newest one. SSA’s own Quick Calculator also fills in past years from the wage index, but by default it assumes your pay grew 2% a year faster than average wages, which makes its past years lower and its estimate a little lower (Quick Calculator FAQs). Future years earn your pay as typed, until benefits start or the age you stop working.
• With your earnings record from my Social Security, the years it shows replace those estimates. A year SSA has not yet recorded uses your typed pay, if you gave one. A total the paper Statement gives for several years together is spread evenly over them, and the page says so.
• Each year counts only up to that year’s taxable maximum ($192,300 in 2027).

The benefit formula

• Earnings before the year you turn 60 are indexed: multiplied by the wage index for the year you turn 60 and divided by the wage index for the year earned, rounded to the cent. Later years count as earned.
• The 35 highest years are added up and divided by 420 months, rounded down to the dollar: your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME).
• The PIA formula for the year you turn 62 (for 2027: 90% of the first $1,340, 32% up to $8,077 and 15% above) gives your primary insurance amount, rounded down to the dime.
• Every cost-of-living increase from the year you turn 62 is added, each rounded down to the dime. If you turn 62 after the newest year SSA has published, the estimate is in today’s dollars: the newest formula and wage index, with no guess at future inflation or pay rises.
• Starting before full retirement age cuts the benefit by 5/9 of 1% a month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% for each month before that; waiting past it adds 2/3 of 1% a month up to 70 (SSA’s table). The monthly amount is rounded down to the dollar.
• You attain an age on the day before your birthday, so people born on January 1 use the year before for their full retirement age, and benefits at 62 start in the first month you are 62 for the whole month.

Checked against SSA’s benefit calculation examples for workers retiring in 2027 (AIME $6,072, PIA $2,720.20, $1,904 at 62; and at the maximum, PIA $4,187.40) and its maximum-earnings examples for 2026 and 2027 at 62, 65, 66, 67 and 70: every one matches.

Spouses and survivors

• A spouse’s benefit is up to half of the worker’s primary insurance amount, cut by 25/36 of 1% a month for 36 months before the spouse’s full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% after; someone with their own benefit gets their own plus the difference (SSA).
• A widow’s or widower’s benefit is 100% of the late spouse’s benefit (their primary insurance amount, plus any credits they earned by waiting past full retirement age) at the survivor’s own full retirement age, cut evenly to 71.5% at 60 (SSA). If the late spouse started early, it is limited to the larger of what they got and 82.5% of their primary insurance amount (20 CFR 404.338).

The earnings limit, taxes and payments

• Under full retirement age, SSA holds back $1 for every $2 earned over $25,560 in 2027; in the year you reach it, $1 for every $3 over $67,920, counting only the months before (SSA). It holds back whole checks from January until the amount is covered; the calculator assumes your earnings come in evenly over the year.
• The taxable part of benefits follows the worksheet in IRS Publication 915: combined income against the $25,000 and $32,000 base amounts (zero if married filing separately and living together), up to 50%, then up to 85%.
• Payment days follow SSA’s 2027 schedule: the second, third or fourth Wednesday by day of birth, the 3rd for people who started before May 1997 or also get SSI, SSI on the 1st, each moved to the first earlier day that is not a weekend or federal holiday when it falls on one (Social Security Act, section 708).

The states

Each state’s page gives its rule from its own department of revenue, tax forms or statutes, linked on the page, and SSA’s counts and amounts for the state from OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County, 2025 (December 2025). The average retired-worker benefit there is SSA’s total for the state divided by its number of retired workers.

What the estimates leave out

Medicare premiums and tax withheld from your check; disability benefits; the family maximum when several people get benefits on one record; earnings after you start benefits, which SSA adds each year; and future increases in wages and prices, which no one knows yet. For your own record and SSA’s own estimate, see my Social Security.

Updated November 7, 2026