5 Key Things To Know About Social Security Retirement Benefits

[mickeyd]

Really? Only 5 benefits to SS? I'm sure that there are at least 6 of them, but these are all pretty important.

There are five key things you should know about your Social Security retirement benefits; things like how working affects your benefits, if you will have to pay taxes on Social Security benefits, and how collecting benefits early affects you and your spouse.

How Age Affects Your Social Security Benefits Eligibility

 

[Options]

For those who think Social Security "won't be there" for them:

Social Security Is Here to Stay, and Advisors Are Studying Up

“We have an unsustainable course with Social Security,” Hopkins said. “But as a society, we’ve set up the way we retire and our personal finances to rely on Social Security. We’re not a country that lets people starve in retirement. We take care of the elderly. We take care of the poor. Social Security provides over one-third of retirees’ entire retirement income. It can’t just go away, and not just for baby boomers, but for the next generation. We’re not seeing higher savings from the next generation to offset the assumption that Social Security won’t be important in the future.”

But some kind of change is getting nearer by the day:

Congress Must Prevent Last-Minute Social Security Reckoning, Experts Warn

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the Trustee Report should serve as “a jolting wake-up call to those who say reform to Medicare and Social Security is not urgent.”

...

“In order to avoid these dire outcomes we must take the necessary steps now to secure these vital programs and guarantee their solvency for our children and grandchildren,” Hatch stated. “To achieve this, however, the administration must lead to unite a bipartisan coalition around a set of responsible reforms. Sadly, we have yet to see such an effort.”

 

[Tadpole]

The only reason for the Trustee's report is to alert Congress to necessary adjustments. But the alert is ignored until it becomes the fodder of ideological wars. Not a way to control a process.

 

[Options]

True, but as Wade Pfau recently pointed out, the willingness of Congress to recently close a SS loophole (during an election cycle, no less) demonstrates they are capable of taking some action. My thinking (hope?) is that after the elections in November we may see more progress.

 

[travelover]

True, but as Wade Pfau recently pointed out, the willingness of Congress to recently close a SS loophole (during an election cycle, no less) demonstrates they are capable of taking some action. My thinking (hope?) is that after the elections in November we may see more progress.

That loop hole didn't exactly make a major difference in SS's solvency.

 

[Options]

The point is they took some action on SS, which shows the issues related to SS are on their radar. In my view, any movement is a good thing.

 

[mickeyd]

willingness of Congress to recently close a SS loophole

Remember, it's only a loophole when you do not gain fortune from it. Otherwise, it's a federal benefit.

 

[GravitySucks]

Remember, it's only a loophole when you do not gain fortune from it. Otherwise, it's a federal benefit.

Damn right. They took away a part of my expected benefit, not closed a loophole. Just glad it was a benefit I didn't even know I could collect until joining this group.
(However if the shoe was on the other foot then I would have called it a loophole.)

 

[Tadpole]

Well, I just happened to have just stepped into the middle of that loophole right before they jerked it away. That means I am one of the small group of people who gets to defer my own SS until 70 while collecting spousal benefits. I did not need to file and suspend since I can collect off my husband's benefit and not vice versa. At the time I felt funny about this since people in a small block get more money can those who come one day after. I didn't feel funny enough to refuse the privilege; I just felt bad for others and went on. I am a bad person, I suspect.

 

[GravitySucks]

I am a bad person, I suspect.

Not at all. Just like with the tax code you have to take advantage of what is available to you when it is available.