When you reach your full retirement age, you can work and earn as much as you want and still get your full Social Security benefit payment. If you’re younger than full retirement age and if your earnings exceed certain dollar amounts, some of your benefit payments during the year will be withheld.
This doesn’t mean you must try to limit your earnings. If we withhold some of your benefits because you continue to work, we’ll pay you a higher monthly benefit when you reach your full retirement age. So, if you work and earn more than the exempt amount, it won’t, on average, decrease the total value of your lifetime Social Security benefits — and can increase them.
Here is how this works: When you reach full retirement age, we’ll recalculate your benefit to give you credit for months you didn’t get a benefit because of your earnings. In addition, as long as you continue to work and receive benefits, we’ll check your record every year to see whether the extra earnings will increase your monthly benefit. You can find more information about working after retirement on our website at www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/ planner/whileworking.html.
= new reply since forum marked as read
