General Discussion

Right now the threshold is the highest 35 years . From age 20 to 65 is 45 years. That leaves 10 years of taking time off to raise kids, get an advanced degree, work a part time job while kids are in school, or take care of a disabled parent. Doing ten years of those things doesn’t hurt your social security benefit very much, although there may be fewer years to choose from for the 35 highest.

If you only work 30, or you are part time for much of it, you are correct that your average will be lower..

They are trying to essentially raise the br or the expectation that to get full benefits you must work from 20 (or 16…) until say 70… So 50 years. Women are often the caregivers. The benefit reduction for only having 30 years (or 35, for that matter) is likely to be much higher if the max benefits are correlated with people working 50 years.