Q. I recently started getting Social Security retirement benefits, but I don't think I'm getting the right amount. When I asked my Social Security representative to explain how the benefit was figured, she just said: "I really don't know. We let the computers do it!" Needless to say, I wasn't satisfied with that answer. Can you explain how Social Security benefits are calculated?

Q. I just started getting my Social Security. My wife, who has been getting her own small retirement check for several years, was switched to my account. But I don't think she's getting enough money. I checked the Social Security Administration website, but couldn't find anything about benefit computations. Can you steer me in the right direction? I want to figure out the benefit myself.

A. Over the years, I've learned there are two kinds of people when it comes to Social Security benefit computations. There are those who are happy to let the government's computers calculate their benefit rate and just assume it's accurate. I'm in that category, and so are the vast majority of Social Security beneficiaries. By the way, government auditors report those computers are right 99.8 percent of the time.

But then there are those folks who just need to know, down to the last nickel, exactly how their benefit is figured. And these two questions are representative of people in the latter category.

Every once in a while, I will write a column that explains, in part, how retirement benefits (the most common benefits) are computed. But it makes for a very tedious column that frankly bores most of my readers. That's because the Social Security benefit formulas are very complex, and include so many variables — such as inflation indexing factors and average wage level benchmarks — that change every year, not to mention other factors like reductions for early retirement and potential eligibility for two or more benefits. I'm not being too flippant when I say that it takes someone with an advanced degree in math to understand Social Security's benefit formulas.

When I started working for the Social Security Administration about 40 years ago, we had a category of employees who did nothing but benefit computations. But as the computations became more convoluted and complex, those employees were phased out and the computers took over. So, although the Social Security representative quoted in the first question may not have been providing the best customer service, she wasn't far from the truth. SSA, for the most part, relies on its computers to determine benefits.

But the formulas obviously do exist and are public information. For those of you who just have to take apart a clock to see how it works, or for those who simply don't trust the government to do anything right, you can figure the benefits yourself. I'm going to steer you in the right direction to find the formulas. Before getting started, you may want to buy yourself a heavy-duty calculator.

Go to SSA's website: www.socialsecurity.gov. Go to the bottom of the home page and click on a link called "Our Program Rules." Then scroll down to "Employee Operating Instructions" and choose that link. Now click on "Program Operations Manual System." This is the "bible" that has every law, rule and regulation that impact Social Security benefits.

It also has the computations. Go to "Table of Contents" and then to "RS-Retirement and Survivors Insurance." Finally, click on "RS 006 Determination of PIAs and Benefit Amounts." (PIA stands for "primary insurance amount," which is government jargon for your basic Social Security benefit.) And there you have it. That leads you to the hundreds, if not thousands, of computation formulas for the various Social Security benefits.

If you can settle with a "quick and dirty" overview of Social Security's retirement benefit formula, SSA publishes a fact sheet called "Your Retirement Benefit — How It Is Figured." You can find that fact sheet at www.socialsecurity.gov/pubs/10070.html.

And if you can figure out your benefit, I've got a hunch the Social Security Administration just might have a job for you!

To find out more about Tom Margenau and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.