User:Whaleknives/Draft SSA Calcs

Social Security Administration
The Social Security Administration maintains several benefit calculators to estimate your potential benefit amounts using different retirement dates and levels of future earnings. In general,
 * If your entry for current earnings is greater than zero, it will be used to estimate annual future earnings.
 * All earnings are indexed to the national average wage index (AWI). Future earnings are indexed with estimated increases in the AWI. Earnings are indexed only to age 60 (two years prior to the first year of eligibility, 62); later earnings are used at face value. These increases are derived from the "intermediate" assumptions in the 2015 OASDI Trustees Report.
 * Although Social Security documentation suggests that future benefits are increased with estimated cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), the estimates from my Social Security, Retirement Estimator, and the default Detailed Calculator (AnyPIA) do not project benefit increases beyond the current year. AnyPIA does offer the following increased benefit options:
 * 1) Alternative I (optimistic) assumptions from the most recent OASDI Trustees Report.
 * 2) Alternative II (intermediate) assumptions from the Trustees Report.
 * 3) Alternative III (pessimistic) assumptions from the Trustees Report.
 * 4) No benefit increases after the last known increase (default).
 * 5) User-specified benefit increase for each projected year.
 * The closer you are to retirement, with a longer work history and fewer future changes, the more accurate your estimates will be.

Notes:

1 Estimates past earnings from current with a national average wage index, modified by a relative growth factor. Past earnings can be adjusted by changing the growth factor or editing the annual numbers, but you cannot project future earning changes.

2 Javascript must be enabled.

3 You must currently have enough credits to qualify for benefits. You cannot be currently receiving benefits on your own Social Security record, be waiting for a decision about your Social Security or Medicare application, or be 62 or older and receiving benefits on another Social Security record.

You can enter multiple ages to stop work with the "Add a New Estimate" button; future earnings will stop and benefits will start at that age. Benefit filing and stop-work ages cannot be entered separately, but future earnings can be entered as zero. If you enter a stop-work age of less than 62, benefits will be estimated starting at 62, the first year of eligibility. Examples of the new estimate input and output forms are shown below:



4 Runs on the following operating systems: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10 and Mac OS 10 (up to 10.6, but not later).