Posted on 05/03/2016 7:55:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In addition, former military members need to remember to take their DD214 with them when applying for benefits.
Four years active duty got me an extra, whopping, $13 per month on my S.S. check.
(Hey, I’d rather have it than not.)
You posted the website and the SSA number is 1-800-SSA-1213 to get the correct facts.
As I have already posted: it's not a "10-year look back".
Social Security considers your highest 35 years of taxed earnings (after adjusting for the change in average wages each year). If you don't have 35 years of earnings, zeroes will be substituted for the remaining years.
Waiting until your full retirement age or starting at age 62 (or waiting until age 70) will affect your benefit, but it has nothing to do with a "look back". Every year you wait after age 62 increases your benefit by 8%.
Any payroll income may help you, if the annual amount exceeds your adjusted wage income from earlier years. My earliest jobs were part-time after school, and it didn't take much income later to "bump" them off the calculation.
Your response is a classic example of how incorrect information misleads or even panics people into making bad decisions.
But, I encourage you to not take my word for it, either. There are various online calculators that you can use to predict your Social Security benefit. The SSA has one here:
https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/AnypiaApplet.html
It's not very detailed, but it's a place for you to start.
Right. I think Trump CAN put a stop to this insanity.
True.
Thank you for the clarification. I logged onto the site earlier to check my status. I appreciate your help in clearing that piece up. I still have a few years to get back to a fulltime job an keep the contributions up, although not early as well as I once did.
I called about this and SS customer service agents kept hanging up on me when they didn’t like the questions.
Great post!
The SS interviewer was astonished that I still had my original DD-214. Apparently, most of them get lost over the years.
The first time I needed my DD214 was in the early 70s when I wanted to get a V.A. backed home loan.
I had enlisted in St. Louis and my records had been destroyed in a fire. Saving the day for me, the government had copies of my records on micro film in Washington D.C.
The process of getting my DD214 took about 6 months. The next time I needed it was when I filed for S.S. benefits and of course I had lost it by then. I filed an on line request for a copy that time and it was in my mail box within 3 days.
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