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About Working In Your Retirement
Working during retirement is something that a surprising number of seniors do, for a variety of reasons. For some, getting out of the house and enjoying the camaraderie of coworkers has value on top of the paycheck. For others, working…
Your Age When You Claim Social Security Sets Your Benefit Amount
Pretty much everyone knows that they can start collecting Social Security benefits at age 62, and reality is that most people actually do claim at that age. But by doing so, they (often unwittingly) take a significant cut in their…
Social Security 101
With Social Security, it’s pretty easy to get caught up in the weeds of this program with over 2000 rules, but sometimes it is a good idea to look at the basics. And that’s what this U.S. News article by…
Your Share of Costs with Medicare
Far from being a free healthcare benefit, the standard Medicare program has deductibles and only pays 80% of the Medicare-approved amounts for services Medicare covers. Those deductibles and the extra 20% “copays” are your responsibility, and many Americans choose to…
Visit Your Retirement Plan Regularly
How often do you get a medical checkup? Chances are, at least annually. Dental checkups? Have your car serviced? Bet you do those regularly too. Well, your retirement financial plan should be viewed with the same regularity, because it is,…
“Social Insecurity?” Keep Social Security’s Role in Your Retirement in Context
There is a lot of publicity these days about the possibility of Social Security running into some severe financial difficulties in the not-too-distant future. Some even mistakenly believe that there’s a danger of the program defaulting and disappearing. Much of…
A Negative View on Calls for Social Security Expansion
Veronique de Rugy (George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University), in a post today on ocregister.com, takes a precautionary view on calls surfacing for Social Security expansion in…
Some Factors That Could Diminish Your Social Security Benefit
If you haven’t given much consideration to the role that Social Security benefits will play in your post-career world, now’s the time to start giving it thought. And one of the most important things to think about is how much…
Taking a Look at GPO and the Impact on Survivor Benefits
The Government Pension Offset, or “GPO,” took effect in 1983 (although the legislation was first passed in 1977). For those with a non-covered pension as described in the previous section on the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), the Government Pension Offset reduces…
New Fact Sheet Added to Social Security Statement
The growing popularity of my Social Security accounts as a conduit to the Social Security Administration (SSA) is making life easier for many folks, and SSA recently added a feature that improves use for lower earners. The components of this new…