I applied for retirement benefit at age 68 and no decision yet from SSA. What SSA decide now will be the final amount for the rest of my life. Will it be? I plan to stop the payments, and go back to work until 70 to earn delayed retirement credit. At that point the amount will be higher due to the credit. My question is: will the second, higher amount for the rest of my life? Or when I stop working at age 70 with no other income it will go back to the amount what I was entitled at age 68?

Thank you for your time.

Hi. Social Security retirement benefit rates can potentially be increased after any year in which a person has Social Security covered earnings or earns delayed retirement credits (DRC). Any such increases are permanent. You can't earn additional DRCs after you reach age 70, and if you stop working at that time your benefit won't increase due to additional earnings. Therefore, your benefit amount would then stay the same after then except for cost of living (COLA) increases. Your benefit rate wouldn't go down or revert back to a prior benefit rate simply because you stop working.

By the way, 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 the new earnings are higher than one or more of the 35 years currently being used to calculate your current benefit rate. If your new earnings aren't among your highest 35 earnings years, the new earnings are simply disregarded and your benefit rate stays the same.

Best, Jerry