Higher self-employment income after claiming Social Security at FRA - can I get a benefit increase?

yes they recalculate every year automatically. u should get a letter about it after tax season when they process everything

Yes, Social Security does recalculate your benefit amount each year if you continue to work after claiming retirement benefits. This is called an Automatic Earnings Recomputation (AER). The SSA looks at your earnings record each year when your new earnings are posted to your record, typically after you file your tax return. The increase only happens if your new earnings are substantial enough to replace a lower-earning year that was used in your original benefit calculation. SSA uses your highest 35 years of earnings (indexed for inflation) to calculate your benefit, so your new higher earnings would need to replace a lower year in that calculation. The increase will be effective January of the year following the year you earned the higher income. So your 2024 earnings, if they result in an increase, would be reflected in your benefit starting January 2025. You don't need to contact them - it happens automatically, but sometimes it can take several months after you file your taxes for the adjustment to appear.

The same thing happened to me!!! I waited 6 months and NOTHING changed in my benefit amount even though I made WAY more money after I started collecting. I finally called SSA and they said "oh we see the higher earnings now, we'll adjust your benefit" but it took ANOTHER 3 months to see the change. And guess what? The increase was only $47 a month. All that waiting for basically nothing.

I had a similar situation last year. After working with higher income post-FRA, my benefit did increase, but only by about $63/month. The calculation is complex because they drop your lowest earning years, and the new earnings have to be substantially higher than your previous earnings to make a meaningful difference. What I found extremely frustrating was trying to reach someone at Social Security to verify everything was processed correctly. I spent weeks trying to get through on the phone, constantly getting disconnected or facing 2+ hour wait times. I finally used a service called Claimyr (claimyr.com) that got me connected to an SSA agent in about 15 minutes. Worth every penny just for the time saved! They have a video showing how it works: https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU When I finally got through, I discovered they had some of my 2023 earnings recorded incorrectly. Getting that fixed increased my benefit by another $28/month. So even though the recalculation is supposed to be automatic, I'd recommend verifying everything is correct.

My husband says he got a increase after working past his reitrement but its all a scam anyway they take most of it back in taxes!!!!!

I've been working after claiming my benefits too and was told something different by an SSA rep. They said I needed to specifically REQUEST a benefit recalculation by filing an SSA-795 form? Has anyone else heard of this? Now I'm really confused if it's automatic or not...

friend of mine worked for 2 yrs after gettin ss and they upped his payment like $11 a month LOL not sure its worth all the work

One important thing to keep in mind is how much your new earnings will actually impact your benefit. SSA calculates your primary insurance amount (PIA) based on your highest 35 years of indexed earnings. Each additional high-earning year will only replace your lowest earning year in that calculation. Let's say your 35th highest year (the lowest one counting toward your benefit) had indexed earnings of $40,000. If you replace that with a new year of $92,000, the difference is $52,000. But that $52,000 difference gets divided by 35 years and then run through the PIA formula which gives higher percentages to lower earnings and progressively smaller percentages to higher earnings. This is why people often see seemingly small monthly increases even with significant new earnings. It's still money you're entitled to, but the formula is designed this way to maintain the progressive nature of Social Security benefits.

they never sent me ANYTHING about increases and Ive been working part time for 3 years since I got my ss!!!!