Can SSI substitute employment years?
I am 69 years old and have been receiving SSI since I was 65 and I am still working. In most of my employment years, my income was not that great and those were the years that SSI used to calculate my monthly check. But in recent years my income is much better. My question is can SSI substitute some of my recent employment years for some of the poor income years so I can receive a larger monthly check?

Hi. By SSI, I assume you mean that you're collecting Social Security retirement benefits. If that's the case, the answer to your question is yes. Social Security retirement benefits are based on an average of a person's highest 35 years of Social Security covered wage-indexed earnings. It doesn't matter whether the person is already drawing benefits or at what age they have the earnings. If a person continues to work after filing for Social Security benefits, their benefit rate can be increased if they have a higher year of earnings than one of the 35 highest indexed earnings years previously used to calculate their benefit rate.

Social Security automatically recomputes benefit rates to include additional years of higher earnings, so you shouldn't need to do anything to get a benefit increase if one is due. If you think that your benefit rate should be increased and it hasn't been done, you can submit a written request to Social Security asking for a benefit recomputation.

Best, Jerry