Retirement planning in the United States begins by looking financially at everything related to the final Social Security check. In this sense, controlling the amount of cash we will have in our monthly Social Security check is vital for a good retirement.
However, we must also keep in mind that starting to collect a Social Security check does not mean a definitive goodbye to the labor market. We can continue working after we start collecting our pension, but we must follow certain rules and we have to accept them.
It is true that we can continue working not with the intention of getting a bigger pension check. We can continue working with the idea of earning extra money to supplement our Social Security. Still, we can find out if increasing our pension check by working after we start collecting our check is possible. Would you like to increase your Social Security check every month?
Can I work after retirement to increase my Social Security?
The short answer is yes, it is possible. Working after you start collecting Social Security can increase your check, but under certain circumstances. The amount of each month’s final pension check depends on three main factors: years worked, age at retirement, and salary during the working years.
The only one of these three factors that we can actually increase after retirement is the salary as a worker. If Social Security takes the highest 35 years of salary, working during retirement we must increase that average. If we don’t raise that average, we won’t get a bigger check.
By this we mean that if you were earning an average salary of $2,500 per month before retirement, you can only increase your Social Security check if you earn more money each month. So, yes, it is possible to get a bigger check from retirement, but it is not easy to do.
When will I collect my next pension?
During the month of February the Social Security Administration sends out benefit checks on the following days:
- February 8th.
- February 15th.
- February 22nd.
On each of these days, a different group of pensioners receives their pension checks. Group 1 is the group of pensioners born between the 1st and 10th of the month. The second group that collects checks is the group of pensioners born between the 11th and 20th of the month. Finally, the last group is the group born between the 21st and 31st of the month.