Here’s the Average Social Security Check for Men vs. Women

As retired workers face the plans they’ve made for their golden years, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with notions of inadequate savings and insufficient Social Security checks. Although Social Security retirement benefits are available to all American seniors who worked the required number of years, there’s a huge gap when it comes to monthly payments.

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Benefits are based on income earned before retirement, so the more you earn working, the higher your benefits. Simply put, gender pay gaps in the workplace will follow men and women in the form of the monthly benefits amount of their checks upon retirement.

That helps explain why men tend to get bigger monthly Social Security checks than women. Men have historically earned more than women — even when they worked the same jobs. In addition, women are much more likely than men to leave the workforce to care for children, which means they miss out on key earning years that contribute to their eventual Social Security benefit amount.

Breakdown of Benefits

Benefits are based on income during your 35 highest-earning years. When you drop out of the workforce for a substantial number of years, those zero-income years are factored into the benefit calculation, which shrinks checks even more. Here are some key takeaways from the Social Security Administration (SSA):

• Social Security is more than just a benefits program for retirees. It also serves a variety of groups with funding for disability benefits as well as spouses and minor children of deceased workers.
• Though amounts and maximum benefits received vary widely, the estimated average a retired worker receives is about $1,920 a month, whereas the average for all recipients is closer to $1,784.
• On average, disabled workers receive about $1,540 a month in Social Security benefits and survivor benefits are about $1,509.

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Social Security for Men vs. Women at Every Retirement Age

The average Social Security check, despite delayed retirement credits or reduced benefits, just isn’t the same for each recipient. It may come as little surprise to those who have received a paycheck in the American workforce, but there are large differences in income based on factors such as age, gender and more. This trend carries over from work paycheck to benefit check. 

When it comes to gender discrepancies, men get higher average Social Security payments across all age groups, starting from those who retire at age 62 — when you first qualify for benefits — up to 100 years old and beyond. Here’s a look at the payment gap between men and women across age groups, according to the SSA:

As you can see, the numbers don’t lie: Statistically, men make more money on average than women during their working years, which translates into them making more in Social Security benefits as the latter is directly based on the former. Until the gender pay gap is erased in the workplace, there is little likelihood that retirement income won’t reflect the same discrepancies.

Vance Cariaga contributed to the reporting for this article.

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