3 Steps to Maximize Your Monthly Social Security Benefits in Retirement

You do your best to save what you can for retirement, and you invest your money so it'll grow more quickly. But you still worry if you'll have enough. You know you'll have Social Security to help you out, too; however, you're not sure how far those checks will go.

The answer to that depends a lot on your income history and when you were born. But your choices matter as well. If you want the most money possible, ensure you're doing the following three things before you apply for benefits.

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1. Work for at least 35 years, if possible

The Social Security Administration looks at your average monthly income over your 35 highest-earning years, indexed for inflation -- your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) -- when calculating your benefit checks. If you apply before you've logged 35 years of work history, you'll have some zero-income years factored into your benefit. Even one of these can significantly reduce the monthly benefit you qualify for in retirement.

Working longer than 35 years isn't guaranteed to increase your benefit, but there's a good chance it will if you're earning more now than you did in years past. As your work history lengthens, those more recent, higher-earning years start to replace the earlier, lower-earning years in your benefit calculation. This leads to permanently larger checks.

2. Maximize your income today

Working longer is one way to boost your AIME, but you can also increase it by boosting your income today. This is easier said than done, but if you can capitalize on opportunities to earn more money in the present, you'll likely get larger Social Security checks in retirement.

You might be able to pull this off by negotiating a raise or starting a side hustle. Any path works as long as you're paying Social Security taxes on that income. Keep in mind that you only pay these taxes on the first $184,500 you earn in 2026 if you're a high earner. Income over this amount might make your life more comfortable today, but it won't affect your Social Security checks.

3. Choose your claiming age carefully

The Social Security benefit you qualify for also depends in part on when you apply for benefits in relation to your full retirement age (FRA). Your FRA is 67 if you were born in 1960 or later. Some older adults have younger FRAs.

Claiming early shrinks your benefits by up to 30%, and this loss is usually permanent. On the other hand, delaying benefits grows your checks until you qualify for your maximum benefit at 70. Then, you get 124% of what you'd qualify for at your FRA of 67.

This doesn't mean that delaying Social Security is always your best option, though. The right claiming age for you depends on your health and finances. Some people reach a point where they're unable to work due to illness or caretaking duties, and they also can't afford to cover their monthly expenses on their own. In this case, claiming Social Security early could be key to staying afloat, even if it means settling for a smaller lifetime benefit.

But if you're reasonably healthy and can afford to delay benefits for a few years, it could be worth it. Once you sign up, your checks will be larger and will cover more of your monthly expenses going forward.

If you'd like a rough idea of how much you'll qualify for at each age, create a my Social Security account. There's a tool there that can help you estimate your retirement benefits based on your income history to date and future income projections.

Figure out which claiming age makes the most sense for you and how much you expect to receive per month. This will give you some idea of how much of your monthly retirement expenses you'll need to cover on your own.

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