How the PIA formula works
Social Security first boils your career down to one number, your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME). The PIA formula then replaces that average in three slices. For workers who turn 62 in 2026, the PIA is 90% of the first $1,286 of AIME, plus 32% of AIME between $1,286 and $7,749, plus 15% of AIME above $7,749. The total is rounded down to the next lower dime.
The dollar amounts where the percentage changes are called bend points. The percentages are fixed by law, but the bend points rise each year with the national average wage index, and your formula is locked in by the year you turn 62, not the year you claim. Someone who turned 62 in 2025 keeps that year’s bend points, $1,226 and $7,391, even if they wait until 70 to file.
The three brackets make the benefit deliberately progressive. A low earner gets back 90 cents of each dollar of average monthly earnings, while a worker who paid Social Security tax on the maximum taxable wage for a whole career ends up with a PIA near 29% of AIME. SSA’s own maximum-earner example for 2026 has an AIME of $14,358 and a PIA of $4,216.90.
How claiming age turns your PIA into a monthly check
Your PIA is what you get at full retirement age, which is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Claim earlier and the benefit is cut by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months before that age and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond that, so claiming at 62 with a full retirement age of 67 pays 70% of your PIA for life. Wait past it and you earn delayed retirement credits of 8% a year until 70, which brings the benefit to 124% of your PIA.
Two other adjustments sit on top. Your PIA picks up every cost-of-living adjustment starting with the one effective in December of the year you turn 62, whether or not you have filed, so the reduction or credit is applied to a PIA that already includes those increases. And the final monthly benefit, after any reduction and any Medicare premium deducted from it, is rounded down to the whole dollar.
Because the age factor is permanent, the claiming decision is really a choice about which multiple of your PIA you lock in. The break-even age compares those choices over a lifetime.
Spousal, survivor and disability benefits built on the PIA
The PIA is not only your own retirement number. Social Security uses it as the base for nearly every benefit paid on your work record, so anything that changes it, such as another strong year of earnings or a career cut short, also changes what a spouse or survivor can collect. Each benefit applies its own percentage and its own age rules to the PIA, and the family maximum caps what everyone together can draw from one record in a month.
- Spousal benefit: up to 50% of your PIA at the spouse’s own full retirement age, never raised by your delayed credits. See spousal benefits.
- Survivor benefit: up to 100% of what the deceased worker was receiving or entitled to, including delayed credits. See survivor benefits.
- Disability benefit: equal to your PIA, with no reduction for age.
- Family maximum: for retirement and survivor benefits, total monthly benefits on one record are capped at 150% to about 187% of the PIA, using separate 2026 bend points of $1,643, $2,371 and $3,093. A divorced spouse is paid outside the cap.
Common PIA mistakes
The PIA sits between two other numbers, and most errors come from blurring them. Upstream is your AIME, the wage-indexed monthly average the formula is applied to. Downstream is the deposit you actually receive, which also depends on your claiming age, cost-of-living increases, Medicare premiums and rounding. The PIA itself is a formula result, fixed by the year you turn 62 and raised only by COLAs and later earnings. These five mistakes come up most often.
- Treating the PIA as the check: when full retirement age is 67, you get 70% of it at 62 and 124% at 70.
- Assuming benefits scale with pay: doubling AIME from $3,000 to $6,000 raises the 2026 PIA by only about 56%, from $1,705.80 to $2,665.80.
- Using the claim year’s bend points: the year you turn 62 fixes the formula.
- Expecting delayed credits to lift a spouse’s benefit: spousal benefits stop at 50% of the PIA.
- Ignoring missing years: fewer than 35 years of earnings leaves zeros in AIME and lowers the PIA.
Illustrative numbers
Figuring a 2026 PIA from an AIME of $6,000
- AIME
- average indexed monthly earnings, rounded down to the dollar
- $1,286 and $7,749
- the 2026 bend points, for workers who turn 62 in 2026
- PIA
- the result, rounded down to the next lower 10 cents
Bend points are fixed by the year you turn 62; cost-of-living adjustments are added to the PIA from that December on.
First $1,286 × 90%$1,157.40
Next $4,714 × 32% ($1,286 to $6,000)$1,508.48
AIME above $7,749 × 15%$0.00
PIA, rounded down to the dime$2,665.80
Claim at 62 (70%, full retirement age 67)$1,866 a month
Claim at 70 (124%)$3,305 a month
This worker’s PIA replaces about 44% of AIME. Claiming at 62 locks in $1,866 a month and waiting until 70 locks in $3,305, before any COLAs added from age 62 and before Medicare premiums are deducted.
At a glance
2026 PIA at different average indexed monthly earnings (AIME)
| AIME | PIA | PIA as a share of AIME |
|---|---|---|
| $1,286 (first bend point) | $1,157.40 | 90.0% |
| $3,000 | $1,705.80 | 56.9% |
| $6,000 | $2,665.80 | 44.4% |
| $7,749 (second bend point) | $3,225.50 | 41.6% |
| $14,358 (SSA maximum-earner example) | $4,216.90 | 29.4% |
Put it in your plan
PIA in MoneyWhatIf
When a Social Security income card estimates from your record, MoneyWhatIf reads the monthly figure you enter as your primary insurance amount at full retirement age, stated as today’s money, not as the check at your claiming age. It then applies SSA’s month-based early-claiming reductions or delayed credits from your modeled birth year. For a couple, a spousal excess is paid where half the worker’s record beats the spouse’s own, within the worker’s family maximum, and after one death the survivor keeps the larger modeled benefit. Choose “Enter an amount” instead and the typed figure is used as stated.
Common questions
PIA FAQs
Where can I find my primary insurance amount?
The closest published figure is the estimate at full retirement age on your Social Security Statement, which you can view in a my Social Security account and which shows estimates at nine claiming ages. It is a projection built from your recorded earnings, so it can move as you keep working or stop. Check the earnings history on the same Statement too, because a missing year counts as zero.
What is the maximum primary insurance amount in 2026?
For a worker who turns 62 in 2026 and earned the taxable maximum every year from age 22, SSA’s example shows an AIME of $14,358 and a PIA of $4,216.90, close to the highest PIA that eligibility year allows. SSA’s headline maximum at full retirement age, $4,152 a month for 2026, is a different figure: it applies to people reaching full retirement age in 2026, whose PIA was set by an earlier year’s bend points and then raised by COLAs.
How much does another year of work add to my PIA?
Only as much as it raises your AIME, converted at the bracket rate your AIME falls in. Replacing a zero year with $84,000 of indexed earnings adds $200 to AIME ($84,000 ÷ 420). Between the bend points that adds about $64 a month to the PIA; above $7,749 it adds about $30. A year that only beats a weak early year adds less. If you already collect benefits, SSA recalculates automatically each year.
Does my PIA change after I start benefits?
Yes, in two ways. Each COLA raises it, 2.8% for benefits paid from January 2026, and SSA recomputes it if a later year of earnings lifts your AIME. What stays fixed is the claiming-age percentage: someone who claimed at 62 with a full retirement age of 67 keeps receiving 70% of the updated PIA. The exception is the earnings test: if benefits were withheld before full retirement age, SSA raises that percentage when you reach it.