Social Security benefits are one of the most important elements of United States society. Being able to collect a check for up to $4,555 every month is not something that anyone can easily turn down.
However, not all Americans who want to apply for Social Security will be able to do so. And the fact is that the pensioner’s pension check has certain indispensable requirements. If we meet those requirements, we will be able to get the monthly payment.
If we do not meet the eligibility criteria, we will not be able to receive a monthly benefit. So before making your retirement plan, make sure that you meet the criteria and you can forget all about financial problems.
Besides that, it is also important to keep in mind that we are talking about the criteria for collecting Social Security retirement by age. It is not the same as collecting a disability check. Each benefit is totally different and has totally different requirements.
In this sense, we must take a good look that we meet all the requirements to collect the payment by age in order to be able to apply for it. The moment we start collecting Social Security our golden years begin and we can rest easy.
CRITERIA AND REQUIREMENTS FOR COLLECTING SOCIAL SECURITY RETIREMENT BENEFITS
First of all, we must keep in mind that any United States citizen is eligible for Social Security retirement payments. Just by meeting the requirements we will be able to have access to this check. With this in mind, we must also look at what those requirements are.
If you do not meet some of the requirements, you will always be able to complete the tasks until you have access to the payment. That is to say, you may not meet the criteria right now, but it is possible that in a few years you will. Then, in a few years you should apply for the benefit.
These are the requirements to apply for a Social Security Age Retirement Benefit in the United States:
- Be age 62 or older.
- You must have worked for at least 10 years.
Just meeting these two requirements will be enough to apply for a Social Security payment. However, this will not give us a big check. If we want to have a larger check, we must maximize the check.
To maximize the retirement check it is necessary to work a minimum of 35 years with a good salary during all that time. In addition to that, we must wait until age 67 to get 100% of the money contributed and until age 70 if we want to have a larger benefit.
The problem with applying for a check as soon as we reach 62 years of age is that we will lose 30% of the money we have contributed during our time as a worker. Each case is individual, but it is true that it means losing a lot of money, so it is better to wait as long as possible.