I started collecting partial ssi retirement @ age 4 months after my 62nd birthday. I am working part time and only bring in 873 from ssi retirement. Should I stop my ssi and just go back to work full-time until age 67 or later? I never worked long enough to receive substantial retirement benefits in my life time and then what about healthcare come full retirement age?

Hi. You don't mention your current age, but assuming that you haven't yet reached your full retirement age (FRA) then you can't voluntarily suspend your benefits until you reach FRA. However, before then your benefits could be withheld if you work and earn too much to be eligible for benefits. For example, people who will be under FRA throughout 2023 will need to have $1 of their 2023 benefits withheld for each $2 that they earn in excess of $21,240.

If you do return to full time work and if your earnings are high enough to cause some or all of your benefits to be withheld, Social Security will recalculate your benefit rate to remove the reduction for age that was initially applied for the months of benefit suspension. How much that might increase your benefit rate would depend on how many months that your benefits are suspended.

Another possible option if you've been collecting benefits for less than a year would be to withdraw your application and reapply later at a higher monthly benefit rate (https://www.ssa.gov/manage-benefits/cancel-your-benefits-application). However, you would then be required to repay all of the benefits you've been paid to date.

Regardless of whether or not you withdraw your application, though, your benefit rate could be recalculated after each year that you earn enough to raise your benefit rate. Social Security retirement benefits are based on an average of a person's highest 35 years of Social Security covered wage-indexed earnings, so additional years of earnings will only increase your benefit rate if they're higher than one or more of the 35 years currently being used to calculate your benefit rate.

Only you can decide what you believe is your best strategy, but you may want to consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully compare and analyze all of your options in order to help you make your decision.

Best, Jerry