Social Security Benefit Tables

Special Minimum Benefit Tables
To be eligible for a special minimum benefit, a person must have at least 11 years of coverage. A person acquires a year of coverage by having a certain minimum amount of earnings in the year.

This form allows you to select a year from 1973 to the present. The special minimum PIA table that became effective in the selected year will be provided. For example, if you select 2008, you will get the table that is effective for December 2008.

Before 1979, the special minimum PIA amounts did not increase when benefit increases occurred. Legislation provided the PIA amounts for January 1973, March 1974, and January 1979. Automatic benefit increases, or cost-of-living adjustments, first increased the PIAs beginning with June 1979. Because the last cost-of-living adjustment became effective for December 2008, the table effective for December 2008 is the latest benefit table.

Benefit Tables For Persons Eligible Before 1979
For persons eligible for benefits before 1979, or for deaths prior to 1979, benefits are determined on the basis of Primary Insurance Amounts (PIAs) given either by tables or, for years prior to 1959, by formulas. In either case, a person's PIA depends on the Average Monthly Wage computed on the basis of that individual's earnings record. (For persons eligible after 1978, benefits are computed using formulas instead of tables.)

This form allows you to select a year from 1959 to the present. The PIA table that became effective in the selected year will be provided.

Before automatic benefit increases existed, there were years where no benefit increase occurred. If no table became effective in the year you select, the table which provided benefits in that year will be given. There were no cost-of-living adjustments effective December 2009 or December 2010, so the table effective for December 2008 remained the benefit table in effect until December 2011.