One part of the American Dream is to reach full retirement age. It is a goal we all have, but it is also a part of us because we want to live a comfortable life and spend time with our families and other interests that we have to put on hold over time.
If we do not know how Social Security works, the truth about retirement may not be what we thought it would be. You might think that paying into Social Security is enough to keep things under control.
Making sure you pay your Social Security taxes will help you retire, but there are two other things you should think about as well.
One, how much you can afford to pay each month, which is limited by your salary, and two, when you decide to retire. These other things will have a big effect on how much your Social Security check is.
What is the full retirement age?
Before you can understand the full retirement age, you need to know how the Social Security Administration (SSA) sees the program. Social Security was created in 1935 mainly as a public policy to help older Americans have extra money in their golden years. This would keep them from falling into poverty and require the government to spend a lot more on other projects.
By creating a savings plan based on an insurance plan, Social Security has set up programs that help people avoid or live in poverty by giving nearly 70 million people a monthly Social Security check.
But because Social Security is an insurance program, it limits the number of people who can retire compared to the number of people who already pay into it. If you have regular insurance, this is the percentage of people who get their money back if something unexpected or bad happens that the insurance covers.
The calculations are the same, but for Social Security, the payment would be made when the person decides to retire, and the age at which that can happen is called the Full Retirement Age.
How does the full retirement age look?
The full retirement age changes based on how much someone is paying into Social Security. The SSA set up the system so that the age at which you can get this status depends on the date you were born. This is the table that the SSA keeps track of:
| Year of Birth | Full Retirement Age (FRA) |
| 1943–1954 | 66 years |
| 1955 | 66 years and 2 months |
| 1956 | 66 years and 4 months |
| 1957 | 66 years and 6 months |
| 1958 | 66 years and 8 months |
| 1959 | 66 years and 10 months |
| 1960 or later | 67 years |
How can your Social Security benefits be affected by your full retirement age?
The Social Security Administration can give you a range of options for when you can retire. The most important thing is not how much you want to get, but whether your finances are stable enough for you to decide to put off retirement as long as possible if you have other sources of income and can live the way you want to with the amount of money the Social Security Administration can give you.
This one-of-a-kind method gives you three levels, or options, for figuring out when to retire. The first is the early retirement age, which starts at age 62. You can begin to think about retiring right now, especially if you need money to get you through your old age.
But SSA takes away some of the money you would get; the amount could be cut by up to 30%. As we already said, the second level is the full retirement age. This age is based on your birth date and lets you get all of your Social Security benefits based on how much you worked before retiring.
Lastly, if you are lucky enough to have enough money to live without claiming your retirement benefits, you can put off retirement until you turn 70, which is the maximum retirement age. The SSA encourages this and will even raise your monthly payment by up to 32% of your contributions.
Also See:- Retirees born between these dates will receive a new Social Security payment on December 18