Website tools estimate Social Security benefits

Calculating when you should retire requires evaluating all sources of your retirement income. There are many factors to consider, including your personal retirement goals. With multiple factors affecting your decision, sometimes it’s difficult to see the big retirement picture.

Social Security offers a webpage of calculators to help you plan your Social Security retirement benefits.

Visit our calculator page and fine-tune your benefit estimate by using the Retirement Estimator if you have the required 40 work credits. Changes in your personal circumstances may cause changes in how long you work before you retire.

Suppose you had planned to work an additional 10 years before retiring, but now you are considering moving that up to the end of this year. How can you determine how much the difference in monthly benefits will be? Create one estimate with your projected earnings through this year and another including the next 10 years. These estimates will give you an approximation for each retirement age to help you make your decision.

Use the Life Expectancy Calculator for a rough esti- mate of how long you might live. The Retirement Age Calculator determines your full retirement age and shows the differences when benefits are taken early. The Early or Late Retirement Calculator can show the differences in benefit amount if you file early or wait until later to start benefits. You can use the Ben- efits for Spouse Calculator to find out how your spouse’s benefit changes if taken early. You can access all of these at socialsecurity.gov/planners/ benefit calculators. ht ml.