If you intend to file for Social Security's retirement benefits in 2025, do you know how big your checks are going to be? The average retiree is seeing monthly payments of $1,976 this year, for perspective, although that's a number made up of a wide range of inputs. Some people are only collecting a few hundred bucks per month, while a small handful of others are enjoying the maximum-possible payment of $5,108.
This begs the question... how exactly does somebody "max out" their Social Security retirement income?
Here's how.
Time
Yes, the size of your Social Security checks is largely a function of how much money you make during your working years -- the more taxable income you earn, the more you get back in the form of Social Security benefits.
The formula for figuring out your future payments isn't solely based on your lifetime earnings, though. There are three unique components to the calculation.
One is the number of years you regularly worked a paying job. For the purpose of determining your eventual retirement benefit, the Social Security Administration (SSA) credits you for your 35 highest-earning (adjusted for inflation) years.
Image source: Getty Images.
But you're not going to work a full 35 years? That's OK. That won't prevent you from receiving any Social Security payment. It just means your payment is reduced accordingly. The program will assign you earnings of zero dollars for any years less than 35 that you didn't receive work-based wages.
Working more than 35 years doesn't necessarily help either, by the way, unless some of those years are significantly higher-earning years that will displace lower-earning ones when the SSA looks for your 35 top-earning years.
Income
Simply working a full-time job for a minimum of 35 years, however, still doesn't mean you'll be banking the biggest Social Security payments. The amount of money you earned in each one of those years is also a factor. Anyone lucky enough to be cashing Social Security retirement checks of $5,108 per month now has annually earned at least an inflation-adjusted equivalent to $176,100 (in 2025 dollars) during at least 35 of their working years. The table below lays out the maximum amount of earnings that was subject to taxation by the SSA for each year going back to 1984.
| Year | Taxable Income Threshold | Year | Taxable Income Threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | $37,800 | 2005 | $90,000 |
| 1985 | $39,600 | 2006 | $94,200 |
| 1986 | $42,000 | 2007 | $97,500 |
| 1987 | $43,800 | 2008 | $102,000 |
| 1988 | $45,000 | 2009 | $106,800 |
| 1989 | $48,000 | 2010 | $106,800 |
| 1990 | $51,300 | 2011 | $106,800 |
| 1991 | $53,400 | 2012 | $110,100 |
| 1992 | $55,500 | 2013 | $113,700 |
| 1993 | $57,600 | 2014 | $117,000 |
| 1994 | $60,600 | 2015 | $118,500 |
| 1995 | $61,200 | 2016 | $118,500 |
| 1996 | $62,700 | 2017 | $127,200 |
| 1997 | $65,400 | 2018 | $128,400 |
| 1998 | $68,400 | 2019 | $132,900 |
| 1999 | $72,600 | 2020 | $137,700 |
| 2000 | $76,200 | 2021 | $142,800 |
| 2001 | $80,400 | 2022 | $147,000 |
| 2002 | $84,900 | 2023 | $160,200 |
| 2003 | $87,000 | 2024 | $168,600 |
| 2004 | $87,900 | 2025 | $176,100 |
Data source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Earning less than these amounts in these years obviously doesn't prevent you from collecting something in retirement, to be clear -- it just means you'll collect less than the maximum when you finally do claim.
However, exceeding these thresholds is of no additional benefit. You'll pay more in ordinary income taxes by making more money than these amounts, but the SSA's cap on its monthly benefits payments also means there's a cap on the amount of wages it taxes for its own purposes. You know these as FICA taxes.
Think strategically about this particular piece of the formula. If you didn't surpass these annual income thresholds in every year earlier on in your career, but are regularly exceeding these income amounts now, it might make sense to continue working until you'll have at least 35 "high-earning" years. These will displace the lower-earning years the SSA would have otherwise incorporated into its calculation of your payment.
Age
Finally, the age at which you file for benefits is one of the three determinants of your eventual Social Security retirement benefits. Anyone collecting monthly checks of $5,108 now didn't initiate their benefits until reaching 70 years of age.
You can certainly claim benefits well before that mark, to be clear. This year's official full retirement age (or FRA) at which you'll receive 100% of your intended benefits is 66 years and 10 months, and slated to rise to 67 full years beginning in 2026. You can even file as early as age 62, or at any age in between.
There's just a downside for doing so.
The younger you are when you file for benefits, the smaller your payment. By claiming at the earliest possible age of 62, for perspective, the size of your monthly payment is reduced to about 30% less than what it would have been had you waited to file at your FRA.
By waiting to initiate your benefits until well after reaching your full retirement age, conversely, your Social Security check ends up being more than what you'd expect when claiming right at your FRA. Indeed, if you're willing to wait until you turn 70 to claim (when the credit for delayed filing maxes out), your payment is a hefty 25% more than what the program was willing to pay you if filing right at your FRA. That's why a few people are collecting seemingly oversized Social Security checks. They waited a long time to start them.
Just bear in mind that the program will be paying you these bigger amounts for a shorter period of total time than it would have had you filed sooner. After all, your life expectancy doesn't change just by initiating your retirement benefits after reaching your official FRA. That's why waiting this long to claim doesn't always make the most sense. It just depends on your situation, and in particular, your health.
Think beyond Social Security
If you're discouraged by the fact that the maximum Social Security payment is simply out of reach for you, don't be. The vast majority of beneficiaries are seeing far, far less. Only about 0.4% of the program's 51.8 million retired recipients are cashing checks of this size, in fact.
Again, the average monthly payment right now is $1,976. While you can do a little to help yourself on this front, there's not a whole lot you can do here -- you're going to get what you're going to get from the government-managed entitlement program.
Rather than lamenting it, remember that that there's still plenty you can do for yourself above and beyond Social Security, whether or not retirement is on your near-term radar. The rate of return on money deposited into an individual retirement account and invested in the stock market, for instance, is far better than the effective return on the money you're taking out of your paycheck and handing over to the SSA every month. The program's returns on the money it's holding in trust barely beat inflation. You just have to give your own money enough time to grow meaningfully, which means starting to save as soon as you possibly can.
If retirement is already in sight, that's OK too. While it may not have been your plan for your golden years, there are worse things than working a bit in retirement to supplement your Social Security income.
