Social Security is designed to supplement your personal retirement savings, but for many, it represents the majority of their household income in old age. The Social Security Administration estimates that half of households with someone age 65 or older get 50% or more of their income from the government program. As such, it’s important to maximize every penny possible from the program.

If you truly max out Social Security in 2025, you’ll receive $5,108 per month from the government. That’s a very healthy income for someone living in most parts of the U.S. Here’s who can qualify for that hefty benefit.

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The three things that determine your Social Security benefit

Before we dive into what it takes to get the maximum possible Social Security check, it’s important to understand what goes into calculating your monthly benefit. There are really only three things that go into determining how much you receive:

• Your earnings history
• The year you were born
• The year you claim benefits

It should be no surprise that those with more career earnings get paid more in Social Security. When you claim benefits, the Social Security Administration (SSA) goes through your entire earnings history and adjusts each year for inflation. The inflation index it uses is based on numbers from the year you turn 60 years old. However, any earnings from age 60 onwards don’t receive an inflation adjustment.

After adjusting your earnings, the SSA then selects the 35 highest-earning years and determines your average monthly earnings. It plugs that number into the Social Security benefits formula (which is affected by the year you were born) to determine your primary insurance amount, or PIA. That’s the amount you’ll receive if you apply for benefits the month you reach full retirement age.

Your full retirement age depends on when you were born. Those born between 1943 and 1954 reached full retirement age at 66. The full retirement age increases by two months for each year you were born after 1954, until maxing out at age 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later.

If you claim benefits before reaching your full retirement age, you’ll receive a monthly benefit that’s less than your PIA. You can also opt to delay your benefits, and the SSA will increase your benefit for each month you delay up until age 70. At that point, your benefit no longer increases. For example, someone born in 1955 who turns 70 this year can boost their benefit by about 31% if they wait until the month they were born to claim benefits.

Getting the most from Social Security

If you want to get the most out of Social Security, a prerequisite is that you’ll have to pay the most into the program. That means maximizing your earnings subject to Social Security taxes.

Every year, the SSA sets a cap for the maximum taxable earnings. That amount increases over time to account for wage inflation. Any earnings above that cap don’t incur any Social Security taxes. But it also means that workers don’t receive credit for any earnings above the cap when the SSA looks at their earnings history. That’s why there’s a maximum possible benefit.

Remember, the SSA averages your 35 highest-earning years after adjusting for inflation. That means you’ll need at least 35 years of earning above the maximum taxable earnings to even come close to the maximum possible benefit in retirement. Here are the maximum taxable earnings from the last 50 years.

Data source: Social Security Administration.

Only a small percentage of workers will earn above the maximum in any given year. But the people that will qualify for the maximum $5,108 benefit in 2025 are among an even smaller group.

Here’s exactly who qualifies for the $5,108 benefit

If you want to receive the maximum possible benefit, you can’t discount the other two factors that go into determining your Social Security benefit: The year you were born, and the year you claim benefits.

You’ll have to wait until the year you turn 70 to maximize the benefits you’re eligible for. That’s the age the SSA stops adjusting your monthly check relative to your PIA. That’s simple enough for many to do.

Unfortunately, though, you can’t control when you were born. Small adjustments to the Social Security benefits formula typically result in a bigger primary insurance amount the later you were born. As a result, only retirees born in 1955 (turning 70 this year) will be eligible for the maximum $5,108 benefit in 2025. Those born in 1954 can receive up to about $5,090, theoretically.

I say “theoretically” because there’s one last caveat in maximizing Social Security. In order to maximize your earnings history, you have to keep working pretty much right up until you make your claim at age 70. That’s because inflation adjustments stop after you reach age 60, but the taxable earnings limit continues to climb higher every year. That makes earnings in your 60s potentially more valuable, as long as you continue to earn at or above the maximum taxable earnings each year (and as long as average wages go up, which they historically have).

Most people don’t aspire to continue working their entire lives. That said, working in your 60s can help boost your Social Security benefit, regardless of whether you’re in line for the maximum possible benefit. Working in your 60s can also help you delay claiming benefits, in turn making your benefits check even bigger when you do decide to call it quits and apply for Social Security.

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