Where Does Your SS Check Rank in 2026? (136)

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Do you know where your Social Security check actually ranks?
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Not the average, not some vague estimate, but your actual number compared to every other retiree that's currently drawing a benefit.
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The average benefit gets quoted constantly, and honestly, it tells you almost nothing about where you stand.
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I'm Jonathan Bedner, certified financial planner with Paradigm Wealth Partners, and I pulled the newest 2026 data from the Social Security Administration to show you exactly where your Social Security check falls and what moves it up if you haven't already started claiming your Social Security.
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If you don't know your number, you can't know if you're leaving money on the table.
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So the number that everybody quotes, according to the most recent data from Social Security.gov is$2071 a month.
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That's the average Social Security benefit as of January 2026, according to SSA.gov.
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But averages hide the shape of things, right?
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They don't tell you if most people are clustered right around that number or if it's being dragged uh around by either a handful of outliers, either up or down.
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So let's just walk through where people actually land.
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So$900 a month and below in Social Security, you're in the bottom 10% of benefits.
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At around$1,200 a month, you're around the 20%.
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Once you get to$1,900 a month, you're around the median, the average or the median uh benefit that gets paid to uh retirees.
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And this is where most of you are watching, they're probably going to land higher than you guess.
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At$3,200 a month, that puts you in the top 25% of uh people that are receiving Social Security benefit.
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At$3,700 a month, you're in the top 10.
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And if you're pulling in$4,700 or more on a monthly basis, you're in the top of 1% of everyone that is collecting Social Security.
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Now, the absolute ceiling, the highest that you could get is$5,181 a month.
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That's the max benefit for someone reaching age 70 in 2026.
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Now, here's why high earners don't just automatically land at the top.
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Social Security is built to be progressive.
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Lower earners get back a higher percentage of what they've paid into, and higher earners get a bigger check in raw dollars, but smaller return relative to what they've actually paid in.
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So bigger income doesn't necessarily mean or guarantee a top-tier benefit.
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It has a lot more uh specific than that.
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So when I work through or walk with clients through analyzing their Social Security, um, and I'm working with clients, most of them land somewhere between$2,400 and$3,600 a month, at least for the clients that we're working with.
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So a lot of my clients are sitting in that, you know, median to top 25%, and maybe even sometimes top 10% relative to their peers.
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Now, how did they get here?
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They've typically worked longer careers, maybe they had higher lifetime earnings, um, and or maybe they just had more years fully worked.
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They may be even delayed.
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So because of that, income alone doesn't set your percentile.
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I've seen high earners land lower than you would expect just because they claimed early.
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And I've seen more modest earners land higher because they waited or their spouse benefit um picked up some of the slack.
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And so what you can see is the percentile the percentile isn't locked in the day you retire.
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If you haven't claimed it yet, you've still got some control of where you land.
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So before we get into actually how uh that number impacts and how you can actually move that benefit number, uh, if you'd rather just have someone run these numbers against your specific situation, that's exactly what we can do at Paradigm Wealth Partner.
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Links in the description if you want to schedule a call and talk through it.
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Let's get back to maybe the top three things that actually move your uh benefit and therefore the percentile uh as it stacks up against you know your peers.
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So uh first, the first one's pretty simple.
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If you delay your Social Security claim for every year you wait past full retirement age up to age 70, your benefit grows by roughly 8%.
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So if you wait from 67 to 70 and you're collecting about 124% of your full benefit.
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So if you take it early at 62 instead of delaying, you're locked in.
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And so you actually are are getting a reduced amount versus waiting till your full retirement age is 67.
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If you claim it's 62, you're locked in at 70% permanently.
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So the second thing is your 35 working years.
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Social Security calculates your benefit off your highest 35 years of earnings.
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So if you work fewer than 35 years, you automatically get a zero for that, and that gets pulled straight into the calculation.
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It doesn't get skipped, it actually gets counted and averaged uh or calculated in as a zero.
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So if you only work 30 years, you've got five years of zeros dragging your average down.
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Every one of those zeros is pulling your benefit lower than it needs to be.
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And a lot of the people don't realize it until it's already baked into your number.
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The third thing is coordinate as a couple.
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So married couples can often come out ahead by having the lower earner claim first while a higher earner delays.
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The higher earner delaying helps maximize that benefit, especially once survivor benefits come into play.
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That decision affects not just your check, but what your spouse has left if something happens to you first.
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Another option is watch the earnings test.
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If you claim before full retirement age and keep working above a certain income threshold, your benefit can actually get reduced.
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It's one of the more common surprises I see, especially with people who retire in stages.
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The issue isn't whether you can move the number, the issue is whether anyone ever showed you how.
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So here's the real question.
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What it really comes down to.
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Most people ask, how do I get my social security number as high as possible?
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But that's not the right question to be asking.
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The right question is how is Social Security and how does that fit into everything else?
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How does it fit into my plan, my withdrawal strategy, my taxes, your spouse's income?
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If something happens to you.
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For some people, squeezing out the highest possible check is exactly the right move.
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For others, taking it out a little easier or excuse me, a little earlier makes more sense once you factor in the full picture.
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Your entire financial plan and retirement strategy.
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Percentile tells you where you stand.
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It doesn't tell you actually what you need to do with that number.
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I'm Jonathan Bedner, certified financial planner with Paradigm Wealth Partners.
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If you want us to look at your specific numbers, create a plan on paper on purpose to help map out your retirement.
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There's a link in the description below.
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You can schedule a call directly with me.
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And if you've got something out of this, make sure to hit the like and subscribe for more.
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Be confident in your retirement.
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Thanks for joining me on another episode of What the Well.
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Your friend Aunt Judy, the random guy in the office who's always talking about investments.
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Wealth isn't about just the chip change.
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