What is AIME and how does it feed into my benefit?

AIME stands for Average Indexed Monthly Earnings, and it is the core input to your Social Security benefit. The SSA takes your annual earnings up to the taxable wage base for each year, indexes the older years upward to reflect national wage growth, selects your highest 35 indexed years, sums them, and divides by 420 (the number of months in 35 years). That monthly figure is your AIME. It then runs through the bend-point formula to produce your PIA. The indexing step matters because it converts wages you earned decades ago into today's wage terms, so a strong salary early in your career still counts meaningfully. Years you earned nothing enter as zeros, so additional working years can raise your AIME by replacing those zeros. Knowing your AIME helps you understand exactly why your benefit lands where it does.