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Factors That Could Change Your Anticipated Social Security Payment
It’s important to understand how the Social Security Administration calculates what is expected to be your monthly benefit payment, but it’s equally important to understand that the net amount that hits your bottom line might differ from that calculation. Yahoo!Finance’s…
Exploring Social Security Benefits for Students
Social Security is a program that offers benefits in areas that are surprising to some, and such is the case with benefits for students of retired, deceased, or disabled program participants. There are rules and restrictions, just as there are…
A Refresher on How Your Social Security Benefit is Calculated
It’s a mystery to many folks who have never taken a look at the details of this massive senior benefit program, but it’s more tedious than complex. In a post today on en.as.com, which you can access here, writers Maite…
WEP and GPO in the News Again
The Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset are two of the more hotly debated aspects of the current Social Security rulebook. How’s that for an understatement? There are many viewpoints on the fairness of these two provisions, and…
Some Broad Strategies for Your Social Security Future
There are many different viewpoints on where and how Social Security fits into individual retirement plans. Here at the Social Security Advisory Service, we field questions about these individual viewpoints repeatedly, many of them dealing with the basic question of…
2023 COLA Watch: Let’s Dampen the Enthusiasm a Bit
We’re still about two months away from learning what the January 2023 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment will be, but despite the unknowns, the airwaves are alight with wild predictions of a north-of-10% adjustment. As The Motley Fool’s Keith Speights suggests,…
A Dichotomy: Seniors are Confident About Retirement Planning, but Concerned About Reaching Goals
A recent study by Fidelity Investments (their 2022 State of Retirement Planning), produce an interesting contradiction…79% of the respondents reported they were confident in the retirement plans they developed, but a nearly equal number of respondents (71%) countered that optimism…
There’s still plenty of time for the U.S. inflation rate to change
The purpose of the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) is to ensure that the purchasing power of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits is not eroded by inflation. It is based on the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index…
Don’t let these get in your way
You are planning and saving for your retirement. You are looking forward to a worry-free retirement. But some obstacles could stand in your way of achieving that carefree retirement. Maurie Backman reviews the three obstacles you might face that could…
Understanding the need for a representative payee
Social Security: Understanding the need for a representative payee. You may know someone who gets a monthly Social Security benefit or Supplemental Security Income payment and who is incapable of managing or even directing the management of their money. If…