Estimated Retirement Benefits in the Social Security Statement

Since 1999, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has mailed an annual Social Security Statement to individuals aged 25 or older showing their reported earnings history. The Statement also provides workers with estimates of benefit amounts available under the Social Security programs. This note focuses on estimates of retirement benefits in the annual Social Security Statement. Estimated benefits are adjusted for economy-wide average wage growth from about the time of Statement issuance to about the time of retirement. In addition, the Social Security Statement uses certain assumptions about current and future individual earnings to estimate retirement benefits. This note evaluates whether the Statement's assumptions produce accurate estimates, using data from a sample of recently eligible retired workers in SSA's Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) microsimulation model