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If you’re thinking about collecting Social Security (SS), having reached the age of eligibility, getting close to it, or still decades away, you should make sure the government’s accounting matches your own.

Because the Social Security Administration (SSA) no longer mails statements regarding your account, you have to create one with the SSA. Once you have an account, you’ll be able to review your wage history, and be given the amount of your Social Security (SS) benefit at your planned retirement age, among other information.

It isn’t only an age requirement that makes you eligible to collect. You also need to have 40 work credits.

You earn “credits” through your work – up to four each year. This year, for example, you’ll earn one credit for each $1,510 of wages, or self-employment income. When you’ve earned $6,040, you’ve earned your four credits for the year.

Most people easily earn 40 credits over their working lifetime, to receive retirement benefits. That’s 10 years of work. It’s a low bar.

The amount you’ll receive is based on your income over your lifetime. If you made more, thereby putting more of your wages toward SS, your payout will be higher. If you were unemployed, spent time in jail, or just didn’t file an IRS return, your payout will be less.

There is a maximum SS payout, despite possibly having had a considerably larger income than most. Even for those who earned the highest wages, there is a maximum benefit, depending on the age they retire.

For example, if you are a high wage earner and retire at full retirement age this year, the maximum benefit would be $3,345. However, if you retire at age 62 in 2022, your maximum benefit would be $2,364. If you retire at age 70 in 2022, your maximum benefit would be $4,194.

For those who made less than most, due to the inability to keep a full-time job, or working part-time at fast food places for example, your SS payout will be significantly less. Regrettably, the situation of not having a full-time job often occurs for stay-at-home housewives, and mothers. Though, for the latter, these women can usually recover, once children reach an age where they can be left unattended and Mom finds employment until retirement age.

The good news is that no matter what you receive, depending on your average wage, an 8.7 percent COLA increase will be added beginning in 2023. It’s one of the largest COLA increases in 40 years.

For those who aren’t eligible for SS and are married, there’s always the hope of outliving their spouse. Survivor benefits are nearly as much as the dead spouse’s original benefit.

You should already know that SS was never intended to fully support you in your old age. That’s why you, if offered by an employer, should put money into a 401K plan, and/or put the maximum percentage allowed into a guaranteed retirement account.

You can also put up to $7000/yr into a Traditional IRA, or ROTH IRA. Your money, won’t be taxed, after meeting specified conditions of your age and the age  of the account, upon withdrawal. This holds true with a ROTH IRA in which stocks can be purchased and sold, and any dividends those stocks generate.

A 401K, ROTH, and retirement account can significantly boost your retirement income to the point where you don’t have to work, unless you want to. All combined can have you bringing in more money, than when you were actually working.