<prompt> Human: Hey guys, My dad is about to retire, so I started looking into the related info for him and to educate myself. I opened an account for him SSA, his account is showing an estimated 350 monthly benefit at full retirement age, and the earning records seem to be correct.Granted, he only makes about 10K to 20K a year for most of the time. I didnt expect he would have a big monthly benefit from Social Security, but I neither expect a low number like this. I was shocked to learn that. Did I miss something?I also learned that SSA has a thing called Special Minimum Benefit, can anyone explain it to me?Assistant: Yes its him, he will be 66 soon. Ethelfleda, garnished, highly unlikely. Thanks for the tip! I guess he will need to go to a local SSA and figure this thing out.I just took a close look my dass Taxed Social Security Earnings which was used by SSA to determine the benefit. I would assume the numbers equal to his W2, Box 3, they are off, but not by a big margin.About the Special Minimum Benefit, I think it doesnt provide any security to low income earners. To apply for it, one would need to have earning that set forth for that year, and have satisfy for at least 11 qualified years. Say one has 30 qualified years, the maximum Special Minimum Benefit is 830month or 10,000year. If one has only 11 qualified years, the minimum Special Minimum Benefit is 40month or 480year.  <response>: In every situation where a friend or family goes into the office and sit down and meets with a real person, they almost always walk away with a better rate and clear records. Just have your dad make an appointment, go with him if you want, get a nice large cup of coffee and install Duolingo app or bring some crosswords and have fun people watching while you wait for your turn to meet with a person. One friend of mine got 3 years of unpaid benefits given to him when he did that. Other friend stopped getting all these letters from SSI threatening to cut his benefits because of not reporting income for 1 month, 2 years ago, despite trying to call it in and sending faxes. 