Social Security earnings limit confusion - does the annual limit apply to income before starting survivor benefits?

my understadning is that ALL your earnings for the entire year count toward the annual limit, not just what you earned after claiming. its based on the calendar year earnings. i think the SS rep might have given you wrong info

The SSA representative was incorrect. For the earnings test, they consider your TOTAL earnings for the calendar year. However, there's a special rule for the first year you receive benefits called the "grace year" rule. In your grace year (the year you first receive benefits), SSA only applies the monthly earnings test to months you actually receive benefits. So for your situation, they would check if you earned over the monthly limit ($1,850 for 2025) in November and December only. But this only applies in your first year. For next year (2026), they'll look at your entire annual earnings against the annual limit. If you do exceed the limit for Nov-Dec, SSA will withhold future benefits to recover the overpayment - they don't usually ask for lump sum repayments.

This is literally why i never answer the phone when SSA calls me back!! Every rep tells you something different and you never know who's right. I've had THREE different answers about earnings limits from THREE different people. The whole system is broken.

I went through exactly this situation last year. What the others are saying about the "grace year" is correct. For your first year receiving benefits, they only look at the months you're actually receiving benefits. In your case, that's November and December. So your January-October earnings won't affect your benefits at all, regardless of how much you earned. For November and December, you're limited to the monthly amount ($1,850 for 2025). If you earn more than that in either month, you won't receive benefits for that specific month. Starting January 1, 2026, you'll be subject to the annual earnings limit for the entire year. Hope that helps!

I tried calling SSA three times to get an explanation about the earnings test and kept getting disconnected after waiting 2+ hours each time. Then I discovered Claimyr (claimyr.com) which got me through to an agent in under 20 minutes! They have a video showing how it works at https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU. The agent I spoke with clearly explained the grace year rule everyone's mentioning and confirmed I wouldn't lose benefits for months before I started claiming. Definitely worth it for getting actual answers instead of more confusion.

Jumping in with a slightly different situation - I started SS retirement at 63 (not survivors) and was working 30 hrs a week. My company counted my health insurance premiums as income on my W2 which pushed me over the limit, and SS took back $4800!!! Make sure you understand EXACTLY what counts as earnings - it's not just your take-home pay!!!!!

I thought the earnings limit was like $22,000 for 2025? How could you have gone over it with $21,500? Am I missing something?

Thank you all for the helpful information! I just wanted to provide an update - I called SSA again and specifically asked about the "grace year" rule. The new representative confirmed what you all said - only my November and December earnings matter for 2025, and since I earned less than $1,850 in each of those months, I won't have any benefits withheld. She apologized for the confusion from my previous call. Such a relief! I appreciate this community so much.

Just to add my two cents - I know several people who've dealt with earnings limit issues and it's almost always better to proactively contact SSA if you think you might exceed the limit rather than waiting for them to catch it later. If they determine there's an overpayment after the fact, it can be much more stressful to deal with.