How MySSAgent calculates your answer

Your answer starts from your own earnings record at the Social Security Administration. You download it as a file from your my Social Security account, or you send it with our Chrome extension. We never ask for your Social Security number.

When your statement includes SSA's estimate of your full-retirement-age benefit, the engine starts from that figure and checks its own math against it. It uses only the earnings already on your record.

It applies the formulas SSA publishes.

• Average indexed monthly earnings. Earnings before age 60 are indexed to wage growth (SSA wage index). The best 35 years are added up and divided by 420 months (20 CFR 404.211).
• Your full-retirement-age benefit. SSA's 90%, 32% and 15% formula, with the bend points for the year you turn 62 (20 CFR 404.212; SSA PIA formula).
• Every claiming age from 62 to 70. Starting early removes 5/9 of 1% a month for the first 36 months before full retirement age and 5/12 of 1% a month after that (20 CFR 404.410). Waiting adds 2/3 of 1% a month, 8% a year, until 70 (20 CFR 404.313).
• Spousal benefits. Up to half the higher earner's full-retirement-age benefit, less your own. The top-up starts once the higher earner files, is reduced if taken early and does not grow after full retirement age (20 CFR 404.333; POMS GN 00204.035).
• Survivor benefits. A widow or widower can step up to the deceased spouse's benefit (20 CFR 404.338). If the deceased claimed early, the survivor's base is still at least 82.5% of the deceased's full-retirement-age benefit (POMS RS 00615.320).
• The earnings test. If you are still working and claim before full retirement age, SSA withholds $1 for every $2 you earn above the annual limit. In the year you reach full retirement age it is $1 for every $3 above a higher limit. SSA then raises your benefit at full retirement age to make up for it (20 CFR 404.415; SSA on working while claiming).

The engine then totals what each age pays through your planning age and names the age that pays the most. That is what "optimal" means in your report. For a married couple, it compares claiming patterns for both of you and shows what the surviving spouse would receive under each.

A planning age of 95. Every lifetime figure assumes you live to 95. That is a margin of safety, not a forecast. You can move it on your results page from your current age (never below 62) up to 100, and the totals and the best age update.

Cost-of-living increases of 2.4% a year, the Social Security Trustees' long-range intermediate assumption (2026 Trustees Report). As SSA does, they start at 62, even before you claim. Lifetime totals are in future dollars.

Current law. That includes the January 2025 repeal of the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. If you turn 60 after SSA's latest published wage index, that index is projected and marked as an estimate.

MySSAgent does not ask about your health. Your health, your other income and what you need each month are yours to weigh against the numbers.

SSA tells its own staff not to try to persuade anyone about when to claim (POMS GN 00204.039). We don't either. The report shows what each age pays, and the decision stays with you.