Will my higher-earning years replace low-income years in Social Security's 35-year calculation?

Yes, the SSA will use your highest 35 years of indexed earnings to calculate your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), which is your basic benefit. If you don't have 35 years of earnings, they'll use zeros for the missing years. So to directly answer your question - your higher-earning years will replace your lower-earning years in the calculation, but only up to 35 years total. If you have more than 35 years of work, only the highest 35 get counted. If you continue working until 70, those additional years (assuming they're higher-earning than some years already in your top 35) will indeed replace earlier lower-earning years in the calculation, potentially increasing your benefit.

The SSA defintely takes your top 35 years, but remember they index those earning for inflation first!!! So your earnings from 20+ years ago get adjusted upward before comparing them to recent years. My brother thought his recent earnings would easily knck out his early years but was surprised when his financial advisor showed him how it actually worked. Just something to keep in mind when your estimating.

In my experience, Social Security's calculation is confusing for most people. You should create an account on ssa.gov if you haven't already - it shows your earnings history and gives you benefit estimates. I found mine was missing two years of earnings that I had to get corrected.

the 35 year thing is right but they don't just add up ur earnings and divide by 35. theres this weird formula with "bend points" that gives u less credit for higher earnings. so even if u replace low years with high years u dont get as much benefit as u might think. its complicated af

If you're having trouble getting accurate estimates or understanding how your specific work history affects your benefits, you might want to try Claimyr (claimyr.com). They helped me get through to an actual SSA agent quickly to discuss my complicated earnings history. I spent weeks trying to get someone on the phone before using their service. You can see how it works in their video demo: https://youtu.be/Z-BRbJw3puU Talking to an actual agent was really helpful because they could see my entire earnings record and explain exactly how different retirement ages would affect my benefit amount.

I was in a similar situation! Worked retail for 10 yrs then got my engineering degree at 32 and started making real money. waited till 68 to file and YES those higher earning years definitely pushed out my early low-earning years. My benefit ended up being about $600/mo more than what the SSA calculator estimated when I was 62! Don't forget delayed retirement credits too - each year after FRA adds 8% to your benefit up to age 70.

Thank you all for the helpful replies! This is exactly the information I needed. I'm definitely going to check my earnings record carefully and may try to speak with an agent to get more personalized projections. It sounds like working longer will help my benefit in multiple ways - both by possibly replacing some low-earning years AND through the delayed retirement credits. I appreciate everyone taking the time to explain this!