The Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) is used in the United States' Social Security system to calculate the Primary Insurance Amount which decides the value of benefits paid under Title II of the Social Security Act under the 1978 New Start Method.
Each calendar year, the wages of each covered worker[a] up to the Social Security Wage Base (SSWB) are recorded along with the calendar by the Social Security Administration.
Those two figures came from the yearly list of National Average Wage indexing series.
For workers with more than 35 years of covered wages, the Average Indexed Monthly Earnings will only take the average of the 35 highest years of indexed covered wages.
This is done by multiplying the amount credited to the Social Security earnings record in any given year by an indexing factor.