Updated August 6, 2026. Quick answer: Social Security’s vocabulary is mostly acronyms defined in terms of other acronyms. These are written to be usable. 32 terms, each with its own link anchor so a single definition can be cited directly — and where a rule has been repealed, it says so instead of quietly describing a world that ended.
The terms
AIME (average indexed monthly earnings). Your highest 35 years of earnings, each indexed to national wage growth, averaged into a monthly figure. It is the input to everything else. Fewer than 35 years of earnings means zeros are averaged in, which is why a late-career gap costs more than people expect.
PIA (primary insurance amount). What you receive if you claim at exactly your full retirement age. Every other benefit on this page — spousal, survivor, children’s — is calculated as a percentage of somebody’s PIA, not of what they actually receive.
Bend points. The two thresholds that split your AIME into three slices, replaced at 90%, 32% and 15%. This is why Social Security replaces far more of a low earner’s wage than a high earner’s, and why the last dollar of career earnings adds very little benefit.
Full retirement age (FRA). The age at which you receive your PIA with no reduction and no credit. It is not 65, it is not the same for everyone, and — the part that catches people — your FRA for a survivor benefit is not always the same year as your FRA for your own benefit. Full page.
Early retirement reduction. The permanent cut for claiming your own benefit before FRA. Permanent is the operative word: it does not snap back at FRA, though it is recalculated if the earnings test withheld benefits along the way. Full page.
Delayed retirement credits (DRCs). The increase for delaying your own benefit past FRA. They stop accruing at 70 — there is no reason to wait past that birthday, and every year people do. Full page.
COLA (cost-of-living adjustment). The annual inflation increase. It applies to your benefit whether or not you have claimed, which means delaying does not cause you to miss COLAs — a common and expensive misunderstanding. Full page.
Credits (quarters of coverage). The work units that qualify you for benefits, capped at four a year. Forty credits — about ten years of work — qualifies you for retirement benefits. Disability needs fewer, and recent ones.
Earnings test. If you claim before FRA and keep working, part of your benefit is withheld above an annual earnings threshold. The money is not lost. Your benefit is recalculated upward at FRA to give it back — the single most misunderstood rule in the programme. Full page.
Spousal benefit. Up to 50% of your spouse’s PIA, if that is more than your own benefit. It does not grow past your FRA, so delaying purely to raise a spousal benefit gains nothing. Full page.
Survivor benefit (widow(er)’s benefit). Up to 100% of what the deceased was entitled to, claimable from age 60. Unlike the spousal benefit, delaying the deceased’s claim does raise it — which is why the higher earner’s claiming age is really a decision about the survivor. Full page.
RIB-LIM (the widow(er)’s limit). The cap that applies when the person who died had claimed early. Social Security’s own manual puts it as a benefit “limited to the larger of: 82 1/2 percent of the NH’s death PIA, or the reduced RIB or DIB amount to which the NH would have been entitled if they had lived” (POMS RS 00615.320). The 82.5% is a floor, not a ceiling — most secondary sources state this backwards. Full page.
Dual entitlement. Being eligible on more than one record — your own and a spouse’s or a deceased’s. You do not receive both in full; you receive the larger, assembled from your own benefit plus a top-up.
Deemed filing. The rule that claiming one of your own-or-spousal benefits claims both. Survivor benefits are not subject to it, which is precisely what makes survivor sequencing a real decision. Full page.
Switching benefits. Taking one benefit now and a different one later. A survivor can take the survivor benefit and switch to their own at 70, or the reverse. A spouse generally cannot do the equivalent. Full page.
Family maximum. A ceiling on the total payable on one earnings record. When several children and a spouse claim on the same record, everyone’s benefit is reduced proportionally — the worker’s own is not.
Divorced-spouse benefit. Payable on an ex-spouse’s record after a marriage of at least ten years, without affecting what they or their current spouse receive. They do not need to have claimed, and they are not notified. Full page.
Remarriage rules. Remarriage before 60 generally ends a survivor benefit; remarriage at or after 60 does not. The split at that birthday is real money and it is easy to trip over by weeks. Full page.
Child’s benefit. Payable to a minor or disabled child on a retired, disabled or deceased parent’s record. It is the most-missed benefit in the programme, because nobody expects a grandparent’s retirement to pay a child. Full page.
Disabled adult child (DAC) benefit. A benefit on a parent’s record for a child disabled before 22, payable into adulthood. It is not means-tested the way SSI is, and it survives the parent’s death.
Lump-sum death payment. A one-off payment to a surviving spouse or child. It is small, it is fixed, and it must be claimed — it does not arrive automatically. Full page.
WEP (windfall elimination provision) — repealed. A formula that used to reduce the benefit of someone with a pension from work not covered by Social Security. The Social Security Fairness Act repealed it. Write and read it in the past tense — most third-party material still describes it as live. Full page.
GPO (government pension offset) — repealed. The rule that used to cut a spousal or survivor benefit by two-thirds of a non-covered government pension. Also repealed by the Fairness Act. It was a different rule from WEP, hitting a different benefit, and conflating the two is the most common error in this area. Full page.
Non-covered employment. Work on which no Social Security tax was paid — some state and local government jobs, some teaching. It still matters for understanding an earnings record even now that WEP and GPO are gone. Full page.
Earnings record. Social Security’s history of what you earned. It is not always right, employers do make reporting errors, and there is a limited window to correct them — check it before you need it. Full page.
Provisional income. The figure that decides how much of your benefit is taxable: adjusted gross income plus tax-exempt interest plus half your benefit. Note the half — it is why people are surprised by the result. Full page.
Voluntary withholding (Form W-4V). How you have federal tax withheld from your benefit. Only a fixed set of percentages is available; you cannot pick an arbitrary dollar amount. Full page.
Representative payee. Someone appointed to receive benefits for a person who cannot manage them. A power of attorney does not work for this — Social Security does not accept one, which surprises nearly every family that assumed it would. Full page.
Overpayment. A notice saying Social Security paid you more than it should have. It has a deadline, and the two responses to it are different things with different consequences. Full page.
Waiver vs reconsideration. Reconsideration says the overpayment is wrong. Waiver says it is right but should not be collected. They are separate requests with separate forms, and choosing the wrong one costs time you may not have. Full page.
Substantial gainful activity (SGA). The earnings level at which disability benefits stop. It is a different test from the retirement earnings test, applies to a different benefit, and the two are constantly confused.
Garnishment. Social Security is protected from most creditors but not from all of them — federal debts, some student loans, child support and alimony reach it. Full page.
The five that cause the most trouble
- WEP and GPO are repealed. They were two different rules cutting two different benefits, and the internet still describes both in the present tense. If something you are reading assumes they apply, check its date.
- The earnings test does not take your money. Benefits withheld while you work before FRA come back through a recalculation afterwards. People claim years later than they need to because they believe otherwise.
- Delaying raises a survivor benefit but not a spousal one. The higher earner’s claiming age is, in practice, a decision about the survivor rather than about themselves.
- The 82.5% in RIB-LIM is a floor. The rule takes the larger of the two figures. Sources that describe it as a cap have it backwards.
- A power of attorney does not work at Social Security. The representative payee process is separate, and families discover this at the worst possible moment.
How to use this, and how to cite it
Every term has its own anchor. Add #t- plus the term to the address and you link straight to that one definition — useful for citing a single meaning in an email, a forum answer or a document, without sending someone to a wall of text.
There are no dollar figures on this page, on purpose. Bend points, the earnings-test threshold, the taxable maximum and the benefit amounts themselves are all indexed. Amounts change every year; the mechanics change rarely. A glossary carrying this year’s numbers would be quietly wrong within months, and quietly wrong is worse than absent. The pages linked from each term carry the current figures and are maintained for exactly that.
Definitions here are our own plain-language writing, not copied from any agency glossary, and each term routes to the page that carries the verified detail. Where a rule has been repealed or replaced, this page says so rather than describing it in the present tense. See methodology, editorial policy and corrections — if something here is wrong or goes stale, tell us and it gets fixed with the date shown.