How Does Your Social Security Benefit Compare to Your State's Average?

Key Points

• The average Social Security benefit varies significantly by state.

• Increasing your income today can lead to larger Social Security checks in retirement.

• Those already on Social Security can suspend benefits to boost their checks.

• The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook ›

The typical retirement budget varies by state. This is in part because of differences in state taxation and cost of living. Differences in average income matter, too.

In higher-income states, retirees can usually save more and are often entitled to larger Social Security checks. If you're curious, here's a closer look at how the average Social Security benefit varies by state.

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Here's the average Social Security benefit by state

The following table breaks down each state's average monthly benefit as of 2024, along with estimates of their average 2026 benefits after adding in the 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for 2025 and the 2.8% COLA for 2026.

Source: Social Security Administration and author calculations.

As you can see, there's a pretty wide range, and the COLAs only widen the gap between the states with the largest benefits and those with the smallest benefits.

How to increase your Social Security benefit in any state

No matter where you live, there are things you can try to boost your Social Security benefit, including:

• Work as long as you can: This helps avoid zero-income years in your benefit calculation and can increase your checks.
• Do what you can to increase your income today: Paying more in Social Security taxes leads to larger benefits in retirement.
• Time your application carefully: Delaying Social Security leads to larger checks, but fewer of them.
• Suspend your benefits if you're already claiming: You can ask the Social Security Administration to stop your checks for a while. When you resume them later, they will be larger.

You don't need all the tips above to make a difference to your checks. Focus on the ones you think you could accommodate, and do the best you can.

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