Social Security
What’s So Critical About the Year 2030?
Most media folks writing about Social Security’s solvency problem point to 2035 as the crisis year–the year when the program’s trust funds run dry and benefit levels fall by potentially as mush as 25%. But there’s another key milestone in…
See What You Can Do Online!
(Source: Social Security Administration) For over 80 years, Social Security has changed to meet the needs of our customers. Today, our easy, secure, and convenient-to-use online services allow you to do business with us from the comfort of your preferred location. From…
Some Social Security Backgrounders
Social Security is a broad and complex area, no question about that. To help put the overall concept in perspective for you, though, there are several basic factors that, once understood, might be able to help you comprehend the system…
Thinking about retiring at 62? Here’s what that means.
It’s an attractive thought, bailing out at the first opportunity and grabbing your benefits. But while many folks focus only on the short-term benefit of cashing in those benefits, the longer term impact of higher benefits later is frequently overlooked.…
Retirement Taxes: Here’s What to Expect
As The Motley Fool’s Dan Caplinger suggests, many folks look toward retirement as a time when tax burdens are lighter, and more of one’s income can be devoted to personal pleasure. Indeed, that was one of the enticements of the…
Getting the Most Out of Social Security: Some Tips
If you’ve spent any time thinking about Social Security and analyzing where and how it fits into your retirement financial strategy, you’re well-versed in the benefits of deferring benefits past age 62, as well as the longer-term advantage of collecting…
Retirement Planning: Balancing Social Security Against Spending Plans
It’s not an easy task, and it takes a lot more than a good crystal ball, but figuring out what income you’ll have in retirement and balancing it against how you’ll spend it is essential to achieving peace of mind…
The Importance of Double-Checking SSA’s Records
The Social Security Administration admits that there is room for errors in the posting of earnings information, citing a “more than 98%” accuracy rate. So, is this 1% to 2% error rate acceptable to you? If not, you might want to…
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…
Have 8 in 10 Millennials Written Off Social Security
According to the results of a 2017 Investopedia study, 81% of surveyed millennials (the roughly 70 million people with birth dates from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s to early 2000s) are convinced that Social Security will not be available to them…