Is SS more than you expected?

[USGrant1962]

According to my research the trust fund as you call it wont be exhausted, it just means the reserve (or excess) funds will be depleted. There will still be assets available to pay retirees but may be less than currently being distributed. Of course this will depend upon someone in the legislature actually doing the right thing and making the hard decisions in the next few years to fix it.

To be accurate, the Trust Fund (yes it exists and is invested in special treasury bonds) will be exhausted in 2034. There will be no assets available to pay retirees. Retirees will only be paid from current SS taxes, which are ~23% below obligations.

 

[MissMolly]

According to SSA, a widow or widower, at full retirement age or older, generally gets 100 % of the workers basic amount at FRA. This amount would be reduced if taken prior to FRA by either the worker or the spouse. This is a quote straight from the SSA website and all available brochures that I have been able to locate in the past 4 years. I have found no other documents or contradictory statements by SSA that claim otherwise. If you can provide more information than just a statement I would appreciate being able to look at it.

If the deceased person waited past their full retirement age to file for SS and that benefit is larger than the survivor would receive on their own, then the survivor's benefit is increased to the higher amount (assuming the survivor waits until they are full retirement age before claiming). Per SS:

"To achieve parity of benefit amounts between workers and their widows, Congress not only increased the widow benefit rate to 100 percent of the PIA in 1972, but it also limited the widow's benefit amount if the deceased worker received reduced retirement benefits (a provision referred to as the widow's limit) and, in subsequent legislation, increased the widow amount if the deceased worker earned DRCs. "

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p89.html

 

[skipro33]

According to SSA, a widow or widower, at full retirement age or older, generally gets 100 % of the workers basic amount at FRA. This amount would be reduced if taken prior to FRA by either the worker or the spouse. This is a quote straight from the SSA website and all available brochures that I have been able to locate in the past 4 years. I have found no other documents or contradictory statements by SSA that claim otherwise. If you can provide more information than just a statement I would appreciate being able to look at it.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying, so I looked it up. Here's a quote and the link I found it;

If the person who died was receiving reduced benefits, we base your survivors benefit on that amount.

https://www.ssa.gov/planners/survivors/ifyou.html

It goes on to state;

• Widow or widower, full retirement age or older — 100 percent of the deceased worker's benefit amount;
• Widow or widower, age 60 — full retirement age — 71½ to 99 percent of the deceased worker's basic amount;

 

[kite_rider]

To be accurate, the Trust Fund (yes it exists and is invested in special treasury bonds) will be exhausted in 2034. There will be no assets available to pay retirees. Retirees will only be paid from current SS taxes, which are ~23% below obligations.

Thanks for clarifying that. It's the gist of the article I quoted and many other articles on the subject as well. Then the real question is; Who will get the limited funds that are available?

Most experts say this can be fixed with either higher taxes or lower benefits; or a combination of the two. For years and years now there has been limited talk and no action on this.

SS has been called the 'third rail' of politics, whatever that means. To me it means that it's unlikely to get reformed until it's really broken and then it will likely be rationed to those who 'truly need it'. That group will probably not include me since I'm a net saver and I choose to live below my means. Therefore, I'd probably vote to just kill it and divert my SS tax to welfare since it seems like that is what it's probably going to be anyway.

To all those who tell me that I'm paying into a system now that will pay be back later - I say the math and experts say otherwise!

 

[brucethebroker]

Have been projecting my SS benefits for over 25 years based on annual reports. Just about what I planned on them being, +/- $100 a month.

 

[Jeb-NY]

I applied and suspended at my full retirement age and my wife applied and got half of what I would have got, before that part of the law got removed. We both then waited to 70 and then she switched to her SS which was a little more than what she was getting.

We have plenty from other savings to live the way we want. I never thought it was necessary to get the maximum total dollars out of SS but wanted the annuity aspect so if things went bad with our investments we would have a safety net for the survivor. Both sides of us have family that lived well in to their 90s. I retired at 57 and ran FIRE calculations out to 100 with nearly 100% chance of not running out of money. Even with out SS the calculation was well into the 90% range of lasting past 100.

4 years ago we moved to a lower cost of living state with no income tax so that should help further. As far as the original question, SS is pretty close to what we figured. With the calculators supplied on the SS site, if it isn't what you expected you didn't do your research.

 

[Wotfan2]

If the deceased person waited past their full retirement age to file for SS and that benefit is larger than the survivor would receive on their own, then the survivor's benefit is increased to the higher amount (assuming the survivor waits until they are full retirement age before claiming). Per SS:

"To achieve parity of benefit amounts between workers and their widows, Congress not only increased the widow benefit rate to 100 percent of the PIA in 1972, but it also limited the widow's benefit amount if the deceased worker received reduced retirement benefits (a provision referred to as the widow's limit) and, in subsequent legislation, increased the widow amount if the deceased worker earned DRCs. "

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p89.html

Thank you for the information, I could not locate this information through my own searches. I am pleased to see they did actually think about the survivors needs in a logical manner. It still bears the need to individually determine actual claiming strategies, which I now get to revisit.

 

[MissMolly]

You're welcome. The whole SS thing is extraordinarily complex in my opinion. Rules for spousal, divorced, disabled, with kids, without kids, born before 1954, file at 62 or 66 or 70 and on and on...

I've been studying all these rules for years hoping it will sink in