When you work and pay Social Security Taxes, you earn credits per year. The number of your credits depends on the date you were born, and you need to work at least 10 years to get 40 credits needed to qualify for retirement benefits.
In case you stopped working, your credits will remain in the Social Security Record. Once you return from work, you can add more credits so you can fill the needed number of credits to qualify for the retirement benefits.
The retirement benefits
The benefit payment is based on how much you earned during your work. More years of work, means more and higher benefits.
The money you can expect is based on two factors:
1.Earnings
The Social Security Administration will calculate your earnings over your career to know what you are entitled to receive.
2.Age
The earliest age you can start getting retirement benefits is 62. If you decide to retire at this age, expect that the benefit you will earn is lower compared to that when you waited until later to retire.
Full retirement and early retirement
The ?full retirement age? is 67; while the earliest possible to start drawing retirement benefits is 62.
If you retire at the age of 62, your retirement benefit would be 25% lower than the benefit you will get if you waited until full retirement age.
You can also choose to keep working even until you reach the full retirement age already. If you do, your future benefits will increase more.
Higher benefits await when you decide to delay your retirement or when you extend your work. It is because each year of your work means additional year of earnings to your Social Security record.
Furthermore, there will be a certain percentage increase to your benefits from the time you reach full retirement age until you reach 70, or until you start receiving benefits.
The percentage will vary depending on your birth date.
Choosing when to retire
There are cases when a retiree could get higher benefit payment. This is because the choice of retirement month matters. So, if you will to decide when to retire, it is good to consult the Social Security beforehand so you will know what month is best to claim benefits.
Seeking Retirement Benefits Attorney
Every worker deserves to have a secured retirement benefit. To achieve it, you must carefully plan your finances. But one thing that could help you best is to talk to a retirement benefits attorney.
A retirement benefits attorney will help you understand about your retirement benefits. He will also give you detailed information about it, and explain you the related- retirement benefits matters that you need to know as you prepare for the future.
You can also consult a retirement benefits attorney regarding the calculations on the retirement ages or the future amount of your earnings.
Once you are already at the retirement age, your retirement benefits attorney could explain you what to do and give you instructions on how you will apply for the benefits and what are the needed documents.
