As soon as a United States citizen reaches the age of 62, he or she can apply for Social Security retirement payments. That is if he has also earned the minimum number of mandatory work credits. But if he meets both requirements he can ask the SSA for a monthly check to enjoy his golden years.
However, requesting such a payment may be insufficient in many cases. A Social Security payment requested at age 62 is a payment that does not have 100% of the money contributed by the worker. So it is a good idea to look at everything surrounding our retirement payment to maximize our options.
Be that as it may, we will always be able to request a larger check from Social Security if we have not yet applied for it. Those who have already applied for a retirement check cannot ask for a larger check, although they can ask the SSA for an extra check to supplement their retirement payment.
Increase your Social Security check
To get a better Social Security retirement check we are going to need to maximize our options. Within those options we find that the Administration calculates our monthly benefit based on three factors. The first is retirement age. The second factor is the salary as a worker. The third factor is the years worked.
Therefore, to increase the retirement payment we must:
- Delay the retirement age as much as possible. The ideal is to apply for retirement at age 70 in order to get a bigger check.
- Have worked for 35 years. If we work less than that amount of time we will find that the payment can go down a lot, so it is better to be close to that work history.
- Have a good salary as a worker. The better the salary as a worker, the better the monthly retirement check. This is important in determining whether we will have a good golden years or not.
Thanks to maximizing these three elements we are going to be able to have a monthly check of up to $4,873, although not all retirees reach that figure.
Get extra Social Security benefits
In the event that we have applied for a Social Security check today and can no longer maximize it, we can get an extra payment. This extra payment is called Supplemental Security Income and thanks to it we will have up to $943 more each month.
However, in order to apply for the check we need to meet certain requirements. On the one hand, it is mandatory to be 65 years old or older or have a disability. On the other hand, it is essential to have a low monthly income, as well as low resources.
The amount received in this benefit will be determined by Social Security based on this monthly income. If we have a very low income, the check will be higher. If the income is higher, the monthly payment will be lower.