One of the great mysteries of personal finance is: How are social security retirement benefits calculated? The computation itself is something of a mystery. It’s so complex that I’m not sure who could have dreamed it up. I am sure that most in Congress don’t understand it. In this article we’ll take an abbreviated look at what goes into the computation.
We will be concentrating on the method of computing retirement benefits in place since 1979. Before then a different, but equally bizarre, method was used. The changes were instituted in 1979 to help keep benefits more or less inflation-proof. The computation begins by determining a worker’s Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME). The AIME is based on the worker’s social security wages or earnings from self-employment after 1950, but only up to the social security maximum for each year.
The worker’s earnings are then “indexed” by adjusting them for the average national wage increases. The purpose of the indexing is to state the wages in terms of the level of wages in the second year prior to social security eligibility. Generally you are eligible for...
To view and download this full PLR article, you must be logged in. Registration is completely free. Once you create your account, you will be able to browse, search & downlod from our PLR articles database of over "1,57,897+" on 1,000's of niches and 200+ categories without paying a penny. Click here to signup...
