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Jersey Devil

(10,703 posts)
8. It depends on whether you retire early or not
Mon Dec 1, 2025, 07:32 AM
Monday

Will my Social Security payment increase if I keep working after I start receiving benefits?

It might. It all depends on how much you’re making now and how much you’ve made over your working life.

Social Security uses your lifetime average for monthly income, as calculated from your 35 highest-earning years and adjusted to reflect historical wage trends, as the basis for your benefit calculation. Even if you’ve already claimed your benefits, Social Security annually recalculates this average, factoring in any new income from work. If your current earnings fall into your top 35 earning years, your monthly average will rise, and so could your benefit.

Continuing to work may have a benefit downside if you claimed Social Security early. In the years before you reach full retirement age, you are subject to Social Security’s earnings test, which reduces your benefits if your income from work exceeds a set limit ($23,400 in 2025).

In the year in which you will reach full retirement age, the earnings cap goes up ($62,160 in 2025), and when you pass the milestone birthday, it disappears. Full retirement age is 66 and 8 months for people born in 1958 and 66 and 10 months for those born in 1959, so people born in the last eight months of '58 and the first two months of ’59 will reach it in 2025.
https://www.aarp.org/social-security/faq/does-payment-increase-if-you-continue-working/?msockid=29a7818f36e4617c3dec973a37d56048

I retired early but continued to work and made more per year in my last few years working than I did in some of the 35 years of the original calculations so my benefit increased a bit after I started collecting.

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