Social Security
Pandering on Social Security Unhelpful to its Financial Problems
Proposals by Democrats are aplenty each congressional session promising enhanced Social Security benefits, whether as cost of living adjustments, one-time payments, or permanent minimum benefit increases. The problem with nearly all, which are intentionally written to be enticing to the…
Creating Disposable Income beyond Social Security in Retirement
Social Security in one’s golden years will only replace about 40 percent of pre-retirement income. As is often the case, it is humbling for retirees to learn the standard of living they were used can be no more. But John…
Retirement Savings – Millennials are ahead of their parents
Who’d have thought it? There has been so much press in the last decade on how younger generations spend money in profligate ways, from the newest I-phones to streaming services to $20 avocado toast. But Nicole Goodkind of CNN Business…
Test Your Social Security Knowledge Here
Lorie Konish of CNBC reports on a new Mass Mutual survey showing that 65% of the 1,500 respondents scored a D or F on the 13 true/false questions. Only 1 % got a perfect score. This underlines the necessity for…
Social Security’s Problems Should be Above Politics and Pandering
A plethora of proposals are consistently introduced in every Congress, generally by Democrats, promising enhanced Social Security benefits, whether as cost of living modifications, one-time payments, or permanent minimum benefit increases. The problem with nearly all, which are intentionally written…
Experts warn the earlier you retire, the greater the risk
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggest more Americans are retiring early. Covid changed many people’s thinking about retirement. Fatter bottom lines in people’s portfolios and surging home prices for those that bought years ago created more opportunities to retire…
Ever wonder why a Social Security check is the amount it is?
People have been warned for years never to discuss what they paid for their airline ticket with the passenger next to them. Those differences in ticket prices are often a strange combination of the day or even hour of the…
Op-ed: Don’t Raise Retirement Age. But is that advice even possible?
That Social Security needs reform is generally not in dispute. Reasonable people on all sides usually differ over how to shore up the program, not whether it needs shoring up. But Alicia Munnell of MarketWatch curiously seems not to acknowledge…
Inflation Poised to Give Social Security Recipients Huge 2023 Boost
It’s what all people are talking about–inflation. It hurts, and those on fixed incomes bear the brutal reality that they have no way to augment their incomes. No extra shift to pick up. No overtime. Their checks are the same…
Op-ed: Social Security can push the elderly into poverty when a spouse dies
Max Richtman, president and chief executive of the nonprofit National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, has a lengthy opinion piece here stating that survivor benefits are no longer adequate for many 21st century widows and widowers. He describes the…