General, Online Services, Retirement

Get Educated about Your Social Security Benefits

January 7, 2016 • By

Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Last Updated: November 6, 2023

A photograph of a mentor educating two students in front of a computer monitor.Summer’s just a memory, the days are cooler, and children are comfortably settling in their back-to-school routines. You should take this time to “hit the books” and learn more about what Social Security offers at our website.

If you’ve been to our website before, you’ll notice the new homepage is even better. We redesigned it based on your feedback. The top suggestion we received was to list all of our content on one page so that’s what you’ll see when you visit www.socialsecurity.gov. You’ll now find it’s easier than ever to find what you want without reading through a lot of links.

The new home page is also easier for mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones. Everything on the home page is accessible regardless of the browser used to access our site.

We want to answer all your burning questions about Social Security, so we’ve redesigned our frequently asked questions (FAQ) site as well at www.faq.socialsecurity.gov to make it easier to find the answers you need. Here you’ll find a link to the most popular FAQ’s as well as topics categorized by subjects such as “Medicare,” “Social Security Number and Card,” and “Same-Sex Couples.”

In launching the new FAQ site, we consolidated about 500 topics to less than 200 and revised the language to be clearer and more easily understood. This year, our redesigned FAQ site won the “Clear Mark Award for Distinction” from the Center for Plain Language.

Whether you’re starting to think about retirement, or if it’s far in the future, a good place to begin is with Social Security’s benefit planners at www.socialsecurity.gov/planners. Here you can use our planners to help you understand how Social Security can provide for your financial future through retirement, survivors, and disability benefits.

Our Retirement Estimator at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator is a great tool to help you know how much in Social Security benefits to expect. After entering a few pieces of information, the Estimator makes use of your reported wages from years past and projects your current earnings in the future to give you an instant, personalized estimate of your future benefits. You can change the variables, such as the date you expect to retire and your future earnings, to see what you can expect in different scenarios.

For a more accurate picture of what you’ll receive from Social Security, you’ll want to join the nearly 20 million individuals who have registered for a my Social Security  account at www.socialsecurity.gov/myaccount.

Registering only takes a few minutes, and then you’ll be able to view your earnings history, get an estimate of your benefit amount at retirement, and print your Social Security Statement.

If you’re truly ready to say goodbye to the daily grind, then it’s exciting to know that retirement is only a few clicks away. You can retire at www.socialsecurity/applyonline from the comfort of your favorite reclining chair or while sipping a drink at your local Wi-Fi hotspot. In most instances, there are no papers to sign or documents to provide and the process only takes a few minutes.

Thanks for cracking the books with us! Just know that wherever you are on life’s journey, you can count on Social Security’s online resources to help!

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About the Author

Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications

Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications

Comments

  1. David

    Social security is quite essential in today’s world because we all spend most of our time on social media today and often leave our person information there.

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  2. dora e.

    cool

  3. Brenda

    I’m glad that you have covered so many details about the social security. In today’s world, it’s important to understand the value of social security and everybody should learn about it. I have learned so many things till today including about healthy posture while working in office from The Luxury Chairs.

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  6. Patricia E.

    I thought that my benefits went up when I changed from disability to regular retirement. Please let me know what the statistics are for this change.

    Thank you,

  7. James M.

    I need more information that how will social security organization help me after accident. My hobby was riding hoverboard but for that I accident also I have insurance. but How I get help. I learn about hoverboard from hoverpicks.

    • Ahmad

      how will social security organization help me after accident. My hobby was riding hoverboard but for that I accident also I have insurance. but How I get help. I learn about hoverboard from hoverpicks.

  8. Patsy

    When working while also collecting SS, is the limit I can earn the net pay or the gross?

    • Ann C.

      Hi, Patsy. Thanks for your question. For our earnings test, we count an employee’s gross wages and net earnings from self-employment. Check out our publication, How Work Affects Your Benefits, for more information. We hope this is helpful.

  9. Thelbert S.

    Information concerning dentist benefits under Medicare. Can we get a list of dentist that except Medicare by email or information sent to us by mail.

    • Ann C.

      Hi, Thelbert. For information about what Medicare covers, please visit Medicare‘s website or call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227; TTY 1-877-486-2048). We hope this helps!

  10. betty F.

    I would like to determine how Social Security determined exactly my monthly payment

Comments are closed.