One good reason to aim for as big a Social Security benefit as you can is this: inflation. Just about every year, the Social Security Administration (SSA) gives every beneficiary a cost-of-living adjustment, or "COLA." The bigger your benefit is, the bigger your bump will be -- each year. For example, a 5% increase on a $2,000 benefit will be $100, but a 5% increase on a $2,500 benefit will be $125.

How big can your benefit get? Well, the maximum monthly Social Security retirement benefit for those retiring in 2023 is $4,555 -- or about $54,660 on an annual basis. The average benefit, though, was recently only about $1,840 -- roughly $22,000 annually.

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Here's a look at how you might qualify for that $4,555. (Spoiler: You probably won't qualify, but you can still make your benefit checks bigger.)

You need to work for at least 35 years for the maximum Social Security benefit

This is the easiest criteria to meet, because many, if not most, of us will work at least 35 years. If you graduate college at 22 and work 35 years, that will get you to age 57, a pre-retirement age for most people. If you start working after high school, at age 18, working 35 years will get you to age 53.

The formula the SSA uses to determine your benefits is based on your (inflation-adjusted) earnings from the 35 years in which you earned the most. So, for every year beyond 35 years that you work, the SSA will kick out your lowest-earning year. That can be an effective strategy for any of us to use to beef up our benefits, even if we never get $4,555 per month.

You need to maximize your earnings for the maximum Social Security benefit

If you're thinking that maximizing your earnings means earning a zillion bajillion dollars, you're wrong. There's a much more modest earnings cap that you need to reach or exceed in each of your 35 years.

It's officially referred to as the "Contribution and Benefit Base" -- and it's the earnings cap above which you're not taxed for Social Security. It's also the earnings level where your benefits max out: Earning more than the cap each year won't affect the size of your benefits -- though earning less than it can disqualify you from achieving that $4,555 maximum benefit.

For 2023, the cap is $160,200. Here's how that cap has grown in recent years:

Year

Earning Cap

2023

$160,200

2022

$147,000

2021

$142,800

2020

$137,700

2019

$132,900

2018

$128,400

2017

$127,200

2016

$118,500

2015

$118,500

2014

$117,000

Data source: Social Security Administration. 

Per the table, to achieve that $4,555 maximum upon retiring in 2023, you'd need to have earned at least $160,200 in 2023, at least $147,000 in 2022, at least $142,800 in 2021, and so on. To max out your earnings like that for 35 years is not something most of us can do. Thus, few of us will be collecting $4,555 monthly.

Still, you can boost your Social Security benefit checks, and it can be well worth trying to do so.

You need to delay claiming your benefits until age 70 for the maximum Social Security benefit

This is the last of the criteria, and it's a powerful move that many of us can make, no matter how much or how little we earn. To start, know that each of us has a "full retirement age" at which we can start collecting the full benefits to which we're entitled, based on our earnings history. For most of us, it's age 66 or 67, and for anyone born in 1960 or later, it's 67.

You can start collecting benefits as early as age 62, though -- which is what many people do and many people simply have to do, because of their circumstances. Starting early will shrink your checks, but you'll collect many more of them.

If you can delay starting to collect your benefits beyond your full retirement age, though, up to age 70, you'll increase your benefit checks by about 8% for each year that you do so. Anyone chasing the $4,555 maximum will need to wait until age 70, then. But the rest of us can still beef up our benefits by delaying as long as we can.

The table below shows how much of your full benefits you'll collect based on your full retirement age and when you start collecting:

Start Collecting At:

Full Retirement Age of 66 

Full Retirement Age of 67 

62

75%

70%

63

80%

75%

64

86.7%

80%

65

93.3%

86.7%

66

100%

93.3%

67

108%

100%

68

116%

108%

69

124%

116%

70

132%

124%

Data source: Social Security Administration. 

So even if you're expecting to collect, say, $2,000 at your full retirement age of 67, you could increase that payout to $2,480 by delaying claiming your benefits until age 70.

The best time to start collecting your Social Security benefits is different for each of us, and it depends on factors such as our health, how long we're likely to live, how much we have saved for retirement, and so on. Even if your future benefit checks will be nowhere near $4,555 per month, you can still probably increase them, making your future more financially secure -- and you'll make your future COLAs bigger, too.