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How Does Women Working Affect Social Security Replacement Rates?
The Social Security Trustees Report states that replacement rates for the medium earner rose from about 30 percent in the 1970s to 40 percent in the 1980s, where they remain today. However, the focus on individual earners is often misleading…
What you need to know about guardianship
A guardianship is the appointment of an individual by the court to exercise all or some control over another person or property. The appointment is usually made when an individual is incapable of exercising control. A court can also divide the…
What Will Your Social Security Check Buy You?
The average Social Security check to a retiree currently sits at $1,267.55. That works out to $15,210.60 per year, or around $7.61 per hour for a full-time, 2,000-hour-per-year job. For comparison, the minimum wage in the retiree haven of Florida…
KAHLER: Are you a spender or a saver?
According to Scarborough, a market research firm, only 9 percent of adults in the U.S. label themselves as spenders. This is the percentage who “mostly agree” with the statement: “I am a spender rather than a saver.” On the opposite…
Think long term when setting budget for retirement
When you determine how much income you’ll need in retirement, you may base your projection on the type of lifestyle you plan to have and when you want to retire. However, as you grow closer to retirement, you may discover that…
Health-Care Coverage a Primary Driver of Deciding When to Retire
What matters most to workers nearing retirement: income or health-care coverage? A recent study by researchers at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College suggests it could be the latter. They examined data about when people filed for Social Security benefits…
The Future Of Social Security And Medicare
Nationally, Social Security provides more than half the household income for one out of two older Americans. Nationally, Social Security provides more than half the household income for one out of two older Americans. Read more… Notice: The “Read more…” link…
More people apply for benefits as disability program nears bankruptcy
More people capable of working are drawing disability benefits instead because they don’t have the skills to compete for more technical jobs — straining the federal program now expected to go bankrupt within three years. Read more… Notice: The…
Mainstream Media Really Like the Idea of Cutting Your Social Security
Sick and tired of hearing and reading news stories about the pressing need to cut your earned Social Security benefits? So are we. Media Matters shed some light on this fatigue by pointing out a whopping 68% of media coverage on…
New Normal Growth, Or A New Social Contract
It should be obvious. If government size and spending is to shrink as the so-called Austerians and deficit hawks want, then private wealth has to increase to maintain healthy growth–for all households. Conversely, if the predictions of a “New Normal”…