The AARP Social Security benefit calculator was introduced to much fanfare in July 2011. While the AARP calculator is free and easy to use, it is not as helpful as it first appears, especially for married couples. According to the AARP, their Social Security benefits calculator “…will show you why most people should wait as [...]
Archive for April, 2012
Married and Turning 66? Time to Consider Your Social Security Claiming Options
Many people who are still working at age 66 have not looked into their options for claiming Social Security benefits. They simply plan to claim their benefits when they eventually retire or even wait until 70. Delayed claiming is generally a good idea because it means that you will get a larger retirement benefit, but [...]
Nonsense Watch: Misinformation about Social Security is Rampant
A recent AARP survey makes clear that the public is unaware of many important aspects of the Social Security system. There are resources available to help individuals with their Social Security claiming decision, such as our custom reports, but the information deficit is not helped by errors made in news stories intended for public consumption. On [...]
Social Security Benefits for Ex-Spouses Better than for Spouses
A little known fact is that Social Security offers ex-spouses two valuable benefit claiming options not available to spouses. These advantages can be worth thousands of dollars to a person who meets Social Security’s definition of a divorced person eligible for ex-spouse benefits. To illustrate these advantages, we’ll consider a simple example. Suppose Burt is [...]
Relationship between Wages and Social Security Benefits
To generate our custom reports, we ask our customers to provide the benefit available to them at their full retirement age, or their primary insurance amount (PIA). All of our calculations are done based on that number, but we don’t discuss how SSA determines it. It’s fairly common knowledge that someone with higher wages over [...]
A Tale of Two Social Security Strategies: File and Suspend versus Restricted Application
When at least one spouse reaches full retirement age (presently 66), two potentially valuable Social Security claiming options become available: 1) the file and suspend option, and 2) the restricted application (or free spousal) option. The former gets far more publicity, and is better known, than the latter option. But, we find good reason to [...]