How can I find out what my Social Security benefit will be in November?

While Congress continues to wrestle with the risks of a government shutdown, the Social Security Administration (SSA) continues its job of supporting Americans on welfare. Four rounds of payments have already been sent in November, per date of publication.

Finding out the size of your payments is pretty easy if you are already receiving them, but what about people who haven’t received them before?

How are Social Security payments calculated?

The SSA bases the Social Security entitlement on your earnings record. This information is than used, with a three-part process, to calculate the size of payments:

Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) – The SSA uses your 35 best-paid years to calculate your AIME, which is essentially a snapshot of your historical earnings. The more you earn the higher your monthly entitlement can be, up to a maximum threshold of $160,200 (as of 2023).

Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) – Assuming that you wait until full retirement age (currently 66 years and two months) before claiming Social Security, your PIA is the amount you’ll receive each month from the SSA. These figures are:

Age of claim – If you decide to claim Social Security before you reach full retirement age the size of your monthly entitlement will decrease. This is done on a sliding scale, with more than a quarter of the payment size being lost if you claim at the age of 62. Alternatively, if you delay the payment until you are 70 you can add up to 30% to your payment amount.

Estimating your November payment

To estimate how much you will get in benefits when you choose to claim, you can do so with the Social Security retirement calculator. However bear in mind that this is simply an estimate and is subject to change.