Most people spend more time planning a vacation than they spend planning their Social Security strategy. And yet, the decisions you make about when to claim, how long to work, and what to do with a pension could be worth tens of thousands of dollars over the course of your retirement. Those choices, once made, are largely permanent.
The good news is that the Social Security system has more built-in flexibility than most people realize. There are legitimate, government-approved ways to increase social security benefits that don’t require a financial advisor or a law degree. Some involve doing something. Others involve waiting. A few involve simply checking that the information the Social Security Administration already has on file about you is actually correct.
Depending on where you are in your working life, some of these will apply to you right now. Others become relevant as retirement approaches. But knowing all of them, early, gives you the longest possible runway to act on them.
1. Build (or Fill In) Your 35-Year Earnings Record
Additional work will increase your retirement benefits. Each year you work will replace a zero or low-earning year in your Social Security benefit calculation, which could help to increase your benefit amount. That’s not a minor tweak – it can move the needle significantly, especially for anyone who took time out of the workforce to raise children, go back to school, or care for a family member.
Social Security calculates your Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) using your highest 35 years of indexed earnings. If you worked fewer than 35 years, those gaps become zeros in the formula, dragging your average down. Even part-time work after your main career can increase your benefit if you have fewer than 35 years of earnings. Those part-time earnings would replace zeros in your calculation, which can definitely boost your benefit.
The maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security taxes in 2026 is $184,500. You don’t need to be anywhere near that ceiling for this strategy to work. Even modest income replacing a zero year improves your average. And the SSA automatically reviews the records for every working Social Security beneficiary each year to see if their additional earnings will increase their monthly benefit amount – so if you go back to work after starting benefits, any qualifying increase will be applied without you having to ask for it.
2. Replace Low-Earning Years by Working Longer
There’s a related but distinct move that applies to people who have already hit the 35-year mark. If you continue working beyond your full retirement age and delay applying for benefits, you can increase your future Social Security benefits in two ways: each extra year you work adds another year of earnings to your Social Security record, and higher lifetime earnings can mean higher benefits when you retire.
Think of it this way: you might have 35 years of earnings on your record, but the early years from your 20s, when salaries were lower, are pulling down your average. According to a U.S. News guide on earnings errors, the most common errors on a Social Security statement are incorrectly reported earnings and personal information. A typo in your Social Security number from a past employer, a name change that was never updated, or an income year that simply never got reported – any of these can mean the SSA is working from incomplete data. But even with a clean record, replacing a year where you earned $22,000 with a year where you earned $80,000 is a legitimate and effective way to push your benefit higher.
If an employer does not correctly report one year of earnings to the Social Security Administration, your future payments could be about $100 per month less than you are entitled to, according to the Social Security Administration. Over a lifetime, that one missing year could cost you tens of thousands of dollars in retirement benefits. The practical takeaway: check your record regularly, not just once before you file.
3. Verify Your Earnings Record and Fix Errors Before You Claim
Speaking of checking the record – this step is one of the most overlooked ways to protect and potentially increase social security benefits. If the SSA is calculating your benefit based on inaccurate data, everything else is moot.
Earnings can go missing from your Social Security record for several reasons, including an employer reporting your earnings using the wrong name or Social Security number, a name change after marriage or divorce that was never reported to the SSA, or your employer reporting your earnings incorrectly. You can review your complete earnings history for free through your personal account at ssa.gov/myaccount. According to the SSA’s FAQ on correcting earnings records, you generally cannot correct your earnings after three years, three months, and 15 days from the end of the taxable year in which your wages were paid – though exceptions exist to confirm records with IRS tax returns, correct employer omission errors, and fix errors apparent on the face of the record.
Due to reporting delays between the IRS and SSA, some workers are seeing a “$0” on their earnings record for recent years, which can lower a potential COLA bump. If you file for benefits while a zero year is still on your record, you could be locked into a lower payment permanently until you catch it and correct it. The SSA recommends checking your statement at least once a year. If something looks wrong, gather your W-2s and contact the SSA directly – don’t wait until you’re about to file.
4. Delay Claiming Until Age 70
This one is simple in theory and hard in practice. Every month you wait to claim Social Security past your full retirement age, your eventual benefit grows. Your monthly check increases for every month you wait, until age 70. Those who delay claiming will see an 8% boost in their payment amount for every year they wait past their full retirement age to begin Social Security.
Age 67 is the normal retirement age for people born in 1960 and later. That means waiting from 67 to 70 can increase your monthly benefit by 24%. In dollar terms, the maximum monthly benefit is $2,969 at age 62, $4,152 at full retirement age, and a peak of $5,181 if you delay until age 70, assuming a maximum earnings history.
On the other end of the spectrum, claiming benefits too early is one of the most permanent financial decisions a person can make. If you retire at age 62 in 2026, your benefit would be $2,969 per month; if you retire at age 70 in 2026, your benefit would be $5,181 per month, according to the SSA. While people can begin benefits as early as age 62, they will see their payments permanently cut by about a third if they do so. That’s not a temporary reduction that gets corrected later – it follows you for the rest of your life.
If you’ve already claimed but haven’t yet reached 70, there’s still a move available to you. See strategy #5.
5. Suspend Your Benefits After Full Retirement Age
Many people don’t know that if you’ve already started collecting Social Security at or after full retirement age, you can hit pause. You can voluntarily request to suspend your retirement benefits at your full retirement age and wait until age 70 to receive your benefits at a higher amount.
You won’t have to pay back what you’ve already received, and your benefits will earn delayed retirement credits (8% per year) until age 70. If your benefit payments are suspended, they will automatically start again the month you reach age 70. You can also restart them earlier if your circumstances change.
There are trade-offs worth knowing. If you voluntarily suspend your retirement benefit and others receive benefits on your record, they will not be able to receive those benefits for the same period your benefits are suspended. However, a divorced spouse will be able to continue receiving benefits. You’ll also need to arrange separate payment for any Medicare Part B premiums during the suspension period, since those can’t be deducted from a suspended check. If you have savings to cover expenses for a few years and don’t need the monthly income right now, voluntary suspension is a low-risk way to permanently increase what you’ll receive for the rest of your life.
6. Claim Spousal Benefits Strategically
If you earned significantly less than your spouse over your career, your Social Security benefit based on your own work record might be much lower than what you’re entitled to through a spousal claim. Spouses can claim up to 50% of their partner’s Social Security benefit if they wait until their full retirement age.
To claim spousal benefits, the higher-earning spouse must be actively receiving their own Social Security benefit first. Once that’s in place, the lower-earning spouse can claim either their own benefit or the spousal benefit, whichever is higher. The SSA will automatically pay the higher of the two amounts.
One thing to keep in mind: unlike your own retirement benefit, spousal benefits do not continue to grow past full retirement age. Delaying past 67 doesn’t add 8% per year to a spousal benefit the way it does to your personal benefit. So if spousal benefits are your primary strategy, claiming at full retirement age is the optimal move. This is also an area where understanding how spousal and survivor benefits coordinate can make a meaningful difference to your bottom line.
7. Claim Survivor Benefits If You’re Widowed
Survivor benefits are one of the most underutilized parts of the Social Security system. If your spouse has died, you may be entitled to a benefit based on their earnings record, not your own, and that benefit can be considerably larger.
Payments start at 71.5% of your spouse’s benefit and increase the longer you wait to apply. You are eligible to claim survivor benefits if you are at least 60 years old (or 50 if disabled), or if you are caring for a child under 16. Claiming at 60 locks in that lower 71.5% rate, while waiting until your own full retirement age gets you 100% of what your deceased spouse was receiving or was entitled to receive.
One smart strategy: claim survivor benefits early (at 60) if your own retirement benefit will be higher than the survivor benefit at age 70. Take the survivor benefit for a few years while letting your own record grow with delayed retirement credits, then switch to your own benefit at 70. Auditors estimated that 5,367 widows and widowers could have received about $114 million more in benefits if they had been properly informed about delaying retirement claims while first collecting survivor benefits – and in those cases, early claiming locked beneficiaries into permanently lower payments, costing an average of more than $21,000 per person. Divorced spouses can also claim survivor benefits if the marriage lasted at least 10 years. Remarriage before age 60 disqualifies you from a former spouse’s survivor benefits, but remarrying after 60 does not.
8. Keep Working If You’re Under Full Retirement Age – Carefully
Many people assume they have to stop working when they start claiming Social Security. That’s not true, but there are rules you need to understand to avoid unexpected benefit reductions.
If you are under full retirement age for the entire year, the SSA deducts $1 from your benefit payments for every $2 you earn above the annual limit, which is $24,480 in 2026. In the year you reach full retirement age, the SSA deducts $1 in benefits for every $3 you earn above a different limit – $65,160 in 2026.
Here’s the reassuring part: those withheld benefits aren’t gone forever. Starting with the month you reach full retirement age, there is no limit on how much you can earn and still receive your benefits. Once you reach full retirement age, the SSA recalculates your benefit to credit you for the months when benefits were withheld, which bumps your monthly check up slightly for the rest of your life. The practical move: if you’re earning more than the limits and you don’t need the money urgently, consider delaying your claim until full retirement age so there’s no withholding to contend with at all.
9. Check Whether the Social Security Fairness Act Applies to You
If you worked as a teacher, firefighter, police officer, postal worker, or in any other public-sector job that didn’t participate in the Social Security system, a major legal change enacted in January 2025 may significantly increase your monthly benefit.
The Social Security Fairness Act eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO), with the SSA beginning to adjust monthly benefit payments for affected individuals starting February 25, 2025. The SSA says the WEP and GPO had reduced or outright eliminated the Social Security benefits of nearly 3 million people. The WEP had cut benefits for workers who also received a government pension, while the GPO had reduced spousal and survivor benefits for anyone drawing on a non-covered pension.
As of early 2025, the SSA had begun processing payments totaling billions of dollars to eligible beneficiaries under the Social Security Fairness Act. According to data reported by U.S. News, those who delay claiming will see an 8% boost in their payment for every year they wait past their full retirement age – and for those newly re-entitled under the Fairness Act, that growth potential now applies in full for the first time. If you think you may have been affected and haven’t seen a change in your payment, log into your my Social Security account at ssa.gov and verify your benefit amount. If there’s still no adjustment, contact the SSA directly – do not wait for the change to happen automatically, as individual cases may require a manual review.
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What to Do Now
The gap between the average Social Security benefit and the maximum possible one is enormous. As of April 2026, the average Social Security monthly check for retired workers was $2,081.16, according to the SSA’s Monthly Statistical Snapshot. The ceiling? At age 70 in 2026, the maximum possible monthly benefit is $5,181. Most people will never reach that ceiling, but the strategies above exist specifically to close the gap between what you’re entitled to and what you’ll actually collect.
Start with the simplest move: log in to your free my Social Security account at ssa.gov/myaccount and review your earnings record. From there, map your claiming timeline against what you know about your health, your retirement savings, and your household income picture. If you have a spouse, model both of your benefit amounts together – the right coordination strategy can make a meaningful difference over a decade or two of retirement. Social Security isn’t just a monthly check. For most Americans, it’s the single largest asset they’ll ever have in retirement. Treating it that way is worth the effort.
Disclaimer: This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional financial advice, investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and is provided for informational purposes only. Always seek the guidance of a qualified financial advisor, accountant, or other licensed professional regarding your personal financial situation or investment decisions. Do not make financial, investment, or tax decisions based solely on information presented here. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and all investments carry risk, including the potential loss of principal.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
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