The biggest Social Security check available to retirees in 2024 would provide $4,873 every single month. A monthly Social Security check of $4,873 would leave you with a good amount of retirement income -- $58,476 a year! That may seem pretty attractive when you're thinking of where your money will come from after retirement.
But is this amount actually within reach? To earn such a large benefit, there are quite a few things you'll need to do before retirement, and completing all these tasks won't be possible for everyone. Here are three things you need to do.
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1. Make a lot of money
Social Security benefits are based on average earnings over your career. To get a monthly payment of $4,873, you'd have to earn quite a lot of money. Specifically, your income would have to be equal to (or above) something called the "wage base limit."
Every year, Social Security sets a wage base limit, which is the maximum amount of income subject to Social Security tax. If you earn more than that amount, extra income is neither taxed nor counted in your benefits formula.
This limit is necessary because without a cap on income used in the benefits formula, some really high earners could end up with monthly Social Security checks totaling tens of thousands of dollars. The wage base limit is, in fact, the reason why there is a maximum benefit. The max benefit is what you'd get under the Social Security benefits formula if you earned at least the wage base limit amount every year that counts when benefits are calculated.
In 2024, you are taxed on up to $168,600, up from $160,200 in 2023 and $147,000 in 2022. These are not small amounts of money. You'd need to earn the inflation-adjusted equivalent of these amounts for virtually your whole career, so if you want the max benefit, you'd better be in a very lucrative job.
2. Work for 35 years or more
The Social Security benefits formula doesn't necessarily consider every year of your career when calculating your retirement benefit. The formula looks at the 35 years you earned the most, after adjusting earnings for inflation.
This means you would have to earn an amount equal to, or above, the wage base limit for every single one of those 35 years included when your Social Security payment is determined. Any one year in which you made less than the wage base limit would prevent you from getting the absolute maximum benefit, since, after all, you would not have the highest possible average earnings.
If you have worked for some years when your income was below the wage base limit, you'll need to put in more than 35 years of work before claiming your benefits. You must push out any lower-earning years and ensure the only ones that count are those in which you made the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $168,600.
3. Make plans to delay your Social Security claim until age 70
Finally, you also have to plan to ensure you won't need to claim Social Security until you are 70 years old. Benefits can be claimed starting at 62, but the max benefit is only available to people who are entitled to the highest possible standard benefit and who then earn delayed retirement credits to increase it.
You have a full retirement age, which is the age you can claim your standard benefit (which, as explained, is calculated based on average wages). But if you file for Social Security before your FRA, you're penalized with a reduction in your benefits. If you wait until 70, you get delayed retirement credits that increase your income.
You'll need to take your standard benefit and make it as big as possible by earning delayed retirement credits if you want to max out your benefit. Unfortunately, many people struggle to work until 70 and have to claim Social Security sooner.
If you want to make sure you can hold off on your first check to maximize your monthly income, make a clear plan now for how to support yourself if you retire before you claim benefits. This will likely mean saving up plenty of money in a 401(k) or brokerage account to live off until you start getting your Social Security checks.
The most important steps
By following these three steps, you can get the maximum Social Security benefit. Don't worry if the income goals seem impossible, though. Even if you can't get the absolute max benefit because earning so much is out of reach, you can still increase your own benefit amount by waiting to claim it and working long enough to avoid having years of $0 wages included in your formula. These two steps alone can make a huge impact and are often well worth it.
