Guinness to Shutter $90 Million Baltimore Brewery. At 63, He’ll Lose Two High-Earning Years He Planned to Use to Replace Weak Ones in His Social Security Record
When Guinness closes its Baltimore brewery, 174 workers lose more than a paycheck. For a 63-year-old counting on two more years to quietly boost his Social Security for life, the timing could cost him far more than he realizes.
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Guinness is shuttering its $90 million Open Gate Brewery outside Baltimore on Nov. 1. According to reports, 174 Aramark employees will be out of work. Imagine one of them in a hypothetical scenario. He’s 63, he has a steady paycheck, and he planned to work two more years before retiring.
Those two years were doing silent work in the background. Strong paychecks late in a career can push weak years out of the Social Security formula. That can raise the monthly check for life. If the job ends early, the weak years stay in the calculation.
A lot of people get this rule wrong. Social Security uses your highest 35 years, whenever you made them.
How Two Missing Years Can Leave Him With a Smaller Check
Social Security adjusts older earnings for wage growth, selects your highest 35 years, and divides the total by 420 months. That average then runs through the benefit formula. If you worked only 33 years, two zeros get averaged in. Low-paid summer jobs can count too, if those years remain among your highest 35.
Here’s the rough math. Say his brewery job paid $70,000 and his record has two zero years. Two more years at that pay would have replaced both zeros and raised his average monthly earnings by about $333.
He turned 62 in 2025.
For anyone in that group, each dollar of average monthly earnings between $1,226 and $7,391 adds 32 cents to the full retirement benefit. Assume his entire $333 increase falls within that range.
That works out to roughly $107 a month, or about $1,280 a year. These estimates describe the increase in his benefit at full retirement age (FRA), before cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs). Claiming before 67 would mean a smaller monthly gain.
Across 20 years of retirement, that comes to about $25,600 before COLAs and claiming-age adjustments. Future COLAs would widen the dollar gap. Estimates for the 2027 increase range from 3.5% to 3.6%, with the official figure still pending.
If his two weakest years were each worth $15,000 after wage adjustment, the lost boost drops to about $84 a month. That’s still real money, and it’s why his first step is finding out exactly which years he’d be replacing.
Why a Smaller Paycheck Can Still Rebuild His Record
A new job only has to pay more than his weakest year to help. Two years at $35,000 that replace two zeros would still add about $53 a month for life.
The labor market gives him a reasonable chance. Unemployment was 4.2% in September, up from 4.1 in the prior month. Still, a 63-year-old with brewery and hospitality experience will likely face a harder search than those national numbers suggest.
Timing gets tricky if he works and collects at the same time. The standard retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later.
Because he is under FRA throughout 2026, Social Security generally holds back $1 for every $2 he earns above $24,480. A special monthly rule may let him collect benefits for retirement months late in the year despite his earlier wages. At full retirement age, the agency adjusts his benefit to credit months affected by withholding, rather than refunding the money in a lump sum. If a new job covers most of his bills, waiting to claim can mean a larger starting check. New earnings can improve his record even after he starts collecting.
Three Moves Worth Making Before He Files
- Pull the earnings record. A free online account at ssa.gov lists every year of earnings Social Security has on file, and old wages that never got recorded can be corrected with W-2s or pay stubs. Sometimes a year that looks like a zero turns out to be a missing entry.
- Compare claiming at 63, 67 and 70. Run the estimates assuming no more earnings, then again with a modest new job, and see how far apart they are.Claiming at exactly 63 starts him at 75% of his full retirement benefit. If that full benefit is $2,000 a month, he would start at $1,500 before COLAs. Turning 67 does not automatically erase the effect of collecting early.
- Count his years before ruling out lower-paying work. If he has fewer than 35 years on record, even part-time work replaces a zero. If he already has 35 solid years, working part time mostly adds spending money and does little for the check.
The mistake that’s hardest to undo is claiming early because the layoff came as a shock. His earnings record can still improve after this job ends. Claiming early generally means a smaller monthly benefit for life, even though new earnings and COLAs can raise the amount. Losing a job at 63 is hard, and he has more control here than it might feel like right now.
The brewery is closing, but his earnings record is still open. The next job does not have to match his old paycheck to improve one of his highest 35 years.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Gerelyn Terzo is the author of dividend investing handbook "Dividend Investing Strategies: How to Have Your Cake & Eat It Too." A veteran financial journalist, she covers agri-finance for outlets like Global AgInvesting and the broader stock market and personal finance for 24/7 Wall Street. She began at CNBC and later helped launch Fox Business in New York. Gerelyn currently resides in Woodland Park, Colorado and dabbles in nature photography as a hobby.
