Check Your Annual Social Security Statement

Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!

Each year, the Social Security Administration sends out statements showing your annual employment earnings for your entire working career, which you can also review online.

Checking your statement each year is important for two reasons:

Get A Sense of How You’re Doing, And If You’re Being Paid Fairly

The statement will include a list of your wage earnings from every year in which you’ve worked, and it’s interesting to see how it’s changed over time.

But more importantly, you should compare your salary progression to average wage growth in your field, particularly if you’ve worked for the same employer for a long time. I occasionally read the posts in r/Salary and am often shocked at the wide disparity of the earnings of people with similar job descriptions and years of experience, particularly in skilled technical roles.

Also, Make Sure Nothing Looks Off

Make sure nothing looks strange on your statement—if the numbers seem out of whack with what you’ve earned over time, it’s possible your social security number was stolen and used by someone else, or that there’s a problem with your records. In that case, you should contact Social Security, and also consider checking your credit report and taking other actions discussed in my recent post about dealing with identity theft.

And now, Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:

Honeybees Invaded My House, and No One Would Help

The Beekeeper Who Saved a Major League Baseball Game

The Era of ‘No-Show’ Fees Is Here—and It’s Going to Cost You

Wyoming Goes Wild: The Mad Dash for ‘Brown Gold’

Why an iPhone Can Survive a Drop From a Plane, but Not From Your Kitchen Counter

I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.