Estimating your Social Security income is a big part of preparing for retirement. It's essential to know exactly how much money you're going to receive in your Social Security checks every month. The good news is that it's easy to find out with a free online tool from the Social Security Administration.
The My Social Security web portal is your one-stop shop for everything you need to know about your benefits, if you want to make adjustments or if you want to get documents related to your taxes and other important information.
Below, we'll show you how to sign up, view your benefits eligibility and estimate your potential monthly payments. For everything you need to know about Social Security, check out our Social Security and SSDI cheat sheet.
How do I estimate my Social Security benefits?
To see all of your Social Security benefits, you need to sign up for a My Social Security account. Note that if you've already signed up for a login.gov or ID.me account, you can skip the following steps and just sign into your account. If you've never signed up for either of these services before, here's what you need to do.
- Head to the login.gov sign up page.
- Tap the Create an account tab and enter your email and your preferred language and then click submit.
- You'll be prompted to verify your email address on the next screen. You can also request to have the verification email resent or change the email address.
- Check your email and look for a Confirm your email from login.gov. Click the Confirm email address button to be taken back to the website.
- Now create a password for your account. The password must have a minimum of 12 characters.
- Next you'll need to set up two-factor authentication. You can use an authenticator app, text message or phone call, backup codes, physical security key, or a government employee ID. Follow the steps to set up your chosen authentication method, and click continue.
- Now that your login.gov account has been created, you can use it to login to the My Social Security portal.
The next few steps will link your login.gov account to the My Social Security portal, where you'll accept the terms of service and input your details to confirm your identity.
How fo find your Social Security eligibility and earnings
Once you've gone through the setup process, you'll get access to your My Social Security dashboard. But before you can start estimating your monthly benefits, you'll first need to make sure you're eligible to receive them.
The Social Security Administration determines your eligibility by the number of "work credits" you have. To qualify for Social Security benefits, you'll typically need 40 work credits, and can earn up to four per working year. Work credits are earned over your working lifetime, so if you don't have 40, you won't be able to get an estimate of your monthly benefit until you do.
Another important part of this section is the ability to view your full earnings record. It will show all years that you've worked, along with the taxed earnings for each of those years.
It'd be best to take your time and look back at your yearly tax statements to confirm the numbers are correct. If your record is missing a year you worked or has incorrect earnings for a particular time period, you may not receive all the benefits you're entitled to. If you find a discrepancy, you can request a correction to your record.
How to estimate your monthly Social Security checks
Right below the Eligibility and Earnings section of your dashboard is the Retirement Calculator. The calculator gives you a breakdown of your estimated monthly benefit, based on whether you retire early at 62, start receiving benefits at your normal retirement age (which is 67 for those born in 1960 or later), or wait to collect your maximum payment amount when you turn 70. If you do decide to collect benefits early, you'll receive less than if you wait till your normal retirement age.
With the calculator, you can easily run different benefit scenarios to see how much you could can expect to receive each month based on the age you start collecting benefits. You can fine-tune your retirement age or date, your average future salary and compare your benefits to a spouse. Any adjustments you make in the calculator will automatically be added to an Estimates Table displayed below, allowing you to easily print or save the information.
What else can you do with a My Social Security account?
Besides checking on your benefits, you can handle other requests through your account.
- Replace your Social Security card.
- View or print your benefit verification letter.
- Start or check the status of your retirement application.
- Start or check the status of your Social Security Disability Insurance application.
- Report wages if you currently work and receive SSDI.
- Calculate a benefit for a current or former spouse.
For more on Social Security, don't miss out why 70,000 people lose their social security benefits each year and our Social Security and SSDI cheat sheet.