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If after yesterday's installment in our Social Security series (Mathematics, Part 1), you're still confused about how your social security benefits are calculated, we received this email from a 31-year claims representative who kindly explains it all in detail:

When figuring a retirement benefit, 35 years of earnings are used. People who have 35 years of earnings get the highest benefit payments. If you don't have 35 years of earnings, and many people do not - for a variety of reasons- out of work, out of country, out for raising children, self employed and not paying in (even though they should have been,) working off the books (a very common one) we still divide by 35, to determine your average, so if you only have 28 years, as an example, you have 7 zeroes in the computation which brings down your average. If you only had 10 years of earnings in the U.S. (which is the minimum number of years needed to qualify for "something", that "something is determined by still divided by 35, which makes it a relatively low benefit payment. ...