Social Security
Ask Rusty – Can My Wife Claim Her Benefit Now, and Switch to a Spouse Benefit from Me Later?
Dear Rusty: Can my wife claim her benefits now (at 63, and we know about the reduction for claiming early) and then, when I retire at 66 years and 10 months of age almost 3 years from now, can she…
CPI-E vs. CPI-W? A Look at What the Diffrerence would be.
The issue of how best to calculate the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security beneficiaries has surfaced as part of the discussion on reforming this massive senior benefit program, and some have advocated for an approach that better fits…
2024 COLA: Don’t forget about Medicare premiums!
The 2024 Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) announced last week has garnered quite a bit of attention in the media, both positively (it will help beneficiaries recover some of the ground lost to inflation) and negatively (the 3.2% bump is…
What Does Social Security Have to do with the House Speaker Fight?
Alex Gangitano, writing in The Hill, alludes to the fact that GOP Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a leading contender to be House Speaker, supports setting up a bipartisan commission to address the national debt, including looking at the Social Security…
Breaking News: COLA 2024 Announced
The Social Security Administration announced a cost of living adjustment (COLA) on October 12, 2023, of 3.2%. This means that effective with the January 2024 payment, one receiving a near average benefit of $1,800 per month will soon receive $1,858…
Halting Social Security From Clawing Back Overpayments Will Further Hurt its Finances
Social Security’s finances are in poor shape. That makes it important that the program do what it can to conserve funds and snag all the revenue it can get. One way it’s been trying to go about that is aggressively…
Mark your calendars
Mark your calendars; the Social Security Administration will announce the 2024 cost-of-living adjustment on Thursday. However, Social Security recipients should see a significantly lower increase than last year’s 8.7 percent. Based on August inflation data, Mary Johnson of the Senior…
Save for retirement so you don’t have to worry
The Social Security Trustees announced the Social Security trust fund will only be able to pay about 80 percent of scheduled benefits starting in 2034. No wonder with headlines in the media that 59 percent of workers worry that Social…
Ask Rusty – How Will My Wife’s Social Security Be Affected by her Teacher’s Pension?
Dear Rusty: My wife, born in 1960, was a Texas school teacher for about 10 years and receives a $1,000 per month pension from that work. She didn’t pay into Social Security while teaching, but she paid into it for…
The maximum amount you can get each month
Everyone wants to know: What is the maximum amount of Social Security benefits I can receive? According to the Social Security Administration: “If you retire at full retirement age in 2023, your maximum benefit would be $3,627. However, if you…