The most someone who retires in 2025 can possibly get from Social Security retirement benefits is $5,108 per month. That is more than $61,000 per year in inflation-protected income, which can certainly be more than enough for a retiree to live on.
Unfortunately, very few people get the maximum, as it requires somewhat of a perfect storm of factors. If you're curious about what it would take to max out Social Security when you're ready to retire, here are the three things that you'll need to do.
1. Work for at least 35 years
This is the box that most retirees can check. The Social Security formula takes your highest 35 years of earnings into account when calculating your benefit. If you've worked for fewer than 35 years, zeros will be used in the calculation for the missing years, and therefore it's mathematically impossible to get the maximum Social Security benefit.
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2. Earn the Social Security maximum in at least 35 years
In order to determine which 35 years of your career were the "highest," the Social Security Administration doesn't simply look at the dollar amounts you earned. After all, a $50,000 salary in 1990 and a $50,000 salary in 2024 were two completely different things.
So, the SSA will index all of your earnings for inflation and will consider a maximum amount of earnings each year, formally known as the contribution and benefit base. For context, the contribution and benefit base in 2025 is $176,100. In 2015, it was $118,500. And in 2005, it was $90,000. After adjusting for inflation, the 35 highest years are averaged together and divided by 12 to determine your average indexed monthly earnings, or AIME. This is the figure that will be applied to the Social Security benefit formula to calculate your initial monthly benefit at full retirement age.
In short, in order to get the maximum possible Social Security benefit, you'll need to earn more than the contribution and benefit base in at least 35 different years.
3. Wait until age 70 to start collecting benefits
Workers who qualify for retirement benefits can claim Social Security at any point between ages 62 and 70. The Social Security formula discussed in the previous section calculates your benefit at full retirement age, which is between 66 and 67, depending on the year you were born.
If you choose to start receiving Social Security before full retirement age, your benefits will be permanently reduced. But if you choose to wait beyond full retirement age, your monthly payments will be 8% higher for every year you wait. So, if your full retirement age is 67 and you wait until 70, you'll get a 24% increase.
To get the maximum $5,108 Social Security payment in 2025, you'll not only need to have at least 35 years of maximum earnings, but you'll need to claim your benefit at age 70 -- not a month sooner.
In fact, the maximum Social Security benefit at full retirement age in 2025 is $4,018 per month, nearly $1,100 less than the overall maximum if you choose to wait.
Most people won't get the maximum
As you might expect, very few people get the maximum possible benefit, or anything close to it. Only a small percentage of people wait until 70 to start collecting Social Security, and only about 6% of covered workers earn more than the taxable maximum in any given year, and far fewer achieve it in 35 separate years.
However, the key takeaway is that by understanding how Social Security benefits work (and what makes them higher), you'll be in a better position to make decisions to maximize your own benefit as much as possible. After all, Social Security is the only inflation-protected source of income many retirees have.
