Primary insurance amount
By Jude Wallis
A primary insurance amount is the Social Security monthly worker benefit at full retirement age, produced by applying the 90, 32 and 15 percent bend-point formula to average indexed monthly earnings.
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AIME is the earnings base. PIA is the benefit at full retirement age after the progressive formula and a floor to the next lower dime. Claiming earlier reduces that benchmark. Waiting after full retirement age can raise it through delayed retirement credits, which stop at age 70.
Bend points belong to the year the worker first becomes eligible, usually the year the worker turns 62. They do not switch merely because the worker waits to claim.
How Social Security benefits work is the explainer. The Social Security PIA calculator applies the slices. How early Social Security claiming works is the claiming-age layer.