Increasing Life Spans and Social Security
The average American is living longer now than ever before. The Social Security Administration knows this better than most, their benefit structure is built around the premise of life expectancy in individuals at certain ages. Opposite to what you may believe, life expectancy is not linear with current age and does not always trend in the direction you would expect. At a certain point, the older you are, the longer you are expected to live, and this is what the retirement age is based off of. Most people will get the most out of their benefits by waiting until full retirement age barring any other outside factors. It is very important to take this all in to account when planning out your retirement and deciding when you will start collecting benefits in order to get the most you are entitled to. For more information on this subject, visit this article by Dan Caplinger with The Motley Fool.