I took 5 years off from working full-time to raise my child. How severely will this impact my Social Security benefit?

Q. I took 5 years off from working full-time to raise my child. I am back working F/T again but am wondering how severely  this will impact my Social Security benefit? Is there anything I can do to make up any potential benefit loss?

The answer to your question depends on whether you will have more than five years with very few or no earnings.  If you have only five, then the effect on your benefit should be slight at most.  The reason for this is that in calculating a Social Security retirement benefit, the Social Security Administration considers only the 35 highest years during your working history.  That said, you will want to make sure you consistently work in covered earnings for the remainder of your career to avoid seeing your Social Security benefit reduced because of years in your computation that contain no earnings or very little earnings.