seniors
Dealing with Sub-Par COLAs
While the official announcement of 2019’s Social Security cost-of-living adjustment grinds toward its official release date, many of the pre-anouncement reports have been giddy about the possibility of a bump inching toward 3%. Not all of these reports have been…
A Good Source of Benefits Information
With a mission of increasing “… citizen access to benefit information, while reducing the expense and difficulty of interacting with the government,” the E-Government website Benefits.gov offers an array of information about services available to all citizens. Of particular interest to seniors are six…
COLA Watch – 2.8% Looking More Certain, But…
It’s looking more and more like the 2019 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security beneficiaries will land at 2.8%. Yes, that’s the largest since 2012 and yes, it’s 40% higher that the 2018 adjustment. But as MarketWatch reporter Alessandra Malito points…
Retirement Planning: Some Fundamentals to Think About
As the saying goes, time marches on. And as you think ahead to the retirement phase of your life, this marching becomes more and more evident as you watch the days count down to the time you’ll be taking the…
Looking at Retirement as a “Life Segment”
Segmenting a lifetime into four primary phases (learning, growing, maturing, and exploring) can give one an entirely different view on what retirement is all about. Each of these four segments–about 8000 days in length–has a unique set of characteristics, as idenmtified…
Retirement…The Elusive Goalposts
Statistics show that Americans are remaining in the workforce longer these daysm, with labor force participation rates among men and women showing significant increases compared to the 1990s. As explained by MarketWatch’s Alessandra Malito in a post on marketwatch.com, there are several key…
A Quick Review of FRA and its Implications
The Motley Fool’s Matthew Frankel, in a post today on www.fool.com, re-explains the full retirement age (FRA) concept, noting that a Fidelity Investments survey last year concluded that only about a quarter of Americans were aware of theirs. His post goes…
SSA Office Closings Intensify Public Concerns
Recently-announced plans to close Social Security Administration field offices in Arlington and Baltimore have shed new light on a wave of discontent among the elderly and those in need of on-site service from the agency. Washington Post reporter Patricia Sullivan, in a…
Living on Fixed Resources: An Accountable View
For seniors grappling with the dichotomy of a relatively fixed income in the face of continually rising prices, and situations like the shock of Social Security COLA adjustments being eaten up by Medicare premium increases, it’s refreshing at times to…
Retirement…A Lifestyle That Doesn’t Work for Some
Call it “unretiring” or just changing mindsets, but it appears that a trend is emerging that brings folks back into the workforce after taking a stab at retirement. In a post on www.nytimes.com, Paula Span provides a glimpse into the…