I am at full retirement age (67) and continue to earn income from various consulting projects. I am thinking of filing for SS benefits since my business is slow to non-existent, and would like to know if there is a maximum annual earning amount and/or penalty, and if my benefits will continue to increase until age 70 if I continue to have annual income. Thanks!

Hi,

No, since you're at least full retirement age (FRA) there is no limit on how much income you can have and still be able to draw all of your benefits.

Your benefit rate could potentially increase following any year in which you have earnings, regardless of your age at the time of the earnings. However, Social Security retirement benefits are based on an average of a person's highest 35 years of wage-indexed earnings on which they paid Social Security taxes, so your benefit rate would only increase if you earn more in a year than you did in one or more of your previous highest 35 wage-indexed earnings years (https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10070.pdf).

Whether or not you continue working, your benefit rate would grow by 8% of each year that you don't draw benefits between FRA and age 70. However, you would stop earning those increases as soon as you start drawing your Social Security retirement benefits.

Before deciding on when to start drawing your benefits, you should strongly consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully explore and compare all of your options so that you can make an informed decision.

Best, Jerry