Not Yet Claimed Social Security & COLA Question

[reddison]

See the edit below:

Here's a question for the social security experts.

I am 66 and have not yet started collecting Social Security benefits. My full retirement age is 66 & 6 months. I am still earning a low 6 figure taxable income for a couple of more years. I have checked my SS security statement over the past 2 years and I've noticed that there has been little to no change in my SS benefit statement amounts for age 66 6months or at 70, despite the 8.7% COLA adjustment that occurred in 2023 and with a 3.2% adjustment coming in 2024.

Does this mean that my benefit does not change with the COLA adjustments since I'm not yet collecting, or are they somehow added on top of the projected benefit numbers shown in my statement at the time I start collecting? It seems to me the projected numbers should be increasing along with the annual COLA adjustments but they are not. Hopefully someone can clarify this for me. Thanks in advance.

I erred in my post above. I thought I compared statements from 2022 and 2023 but now realize both statements were printed 2023 (March and November. My amount did go down slightly because my semi retirement taxable income is a little below the max, where it was previously. That explains the decrease and in fact my numbers have been adjusted upward since I last printed out my statement in 2021.

Thanks to those who responded below!

[Silk McCue]

COLAs are applied starting at age 62 to the estimates whether or not you have filed. Not certain why you are seeing them as we and others do.

Cheers

[Tom_T]

Are you looking at your account on ssa.gov, presumably? It doesn't make sense that your benefit hasn't changed.

[FactualFran]

During each of the past 2 years, was your income subject to Social Security payroll tax less than the future income assumed by the benefit amount estimates?

[reddison]

Thanks for the responses. Please see my edit above.