Don’t let a lack of retirement planning leave your spouse vulnerable - Kiplinger
While most couples spend time talking about retirement and looking forward to being together, they forget to plan for when one spouse passes away and the other is left alone. A retirement plan that does not include for the inevitable transitioning to widowhood is simply an incomplete plan. Why? First, when a spouse passes, the smaller of the couple’s two Social Security checks automatically goes away leaving the surviving spouse to live with only the larger of the two checks. Second, when a surviving spouse transitions to being a single filer on his or her income tax return, a phenomenon that’s sometimes called the “survivor trap” or “widow’s penalty” occurs. In Derek Ghia’s article for Kiplinger, he explains what couples can do to avoid the “widow’s penalty” and other financial issues surviving spouses often encounter. Read Mr. Ghia’s article here…