What is the significance of SS full retirement age?
- Thread starter Dave1027
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I took mine at age 62...I am now 70 and do not regret it at all...
One thing which has not been talked about is your how your yearly income gets calculated into your SS payment no matter at which point you decide to apply. From my understanding your 30 year income is divided to get your payout amount. Let's say you decide to work longer because your present income (or income from the past decade) is much higher than your previous years income. So, your are replacing low income earning years with higher income working years. (Say past years 15-20k being replaced by 40k+ recent years.) This must significantly increase your monthly payment. This is one of reasons I'm delaying taking SS besides thinking about my spouse. (Health is relatively good and still enjoy working FT.) I'm no expect by any means, so I could be completely off base with these thoughts.
As the population ages AND live longer more people than ever are older in the USA collecting Social Security.
Adjustments have to be made because of this. I don’t consider that mismanagement.
It’s only natural, personally I think “the system” runs efficiently and well and I’m very happy with how well it works. That and Medicare.
The only thing broken is the media hype creating stories where no story exists for no reason other than creating “news” for readership.
The system isn’t going broke, never will go broke, adjustments will be made as they have been over the decades and since the time our life expectancy was around 68 years old.
If you’re young you better pay more attention to the national debt that is where mismanagement is 35 trillion and going up every second.
Social Security is funded separately in a trust fund.
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The key is work is a passion of yours, nothing wrong with that.
Best source of information is the actual source though. People would be better to direct those with statements about how something works to the source.
Our governments sources are very robust and easy to understand.
https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10070.pdf
AG posted the source, but I was gonna say it's 35 years........so a couple few years may not have a huge impact. But say you enjoy and excel and become big $ CEO for the last 5 years, yeah could boost you a hun or two
My wife whop took care of kids mid life went back to work for 10 years making healthy money definitely helped her.
As I posted, very individualistic.
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
All I can say about life expectancy, if handicapped parking spots are a supplemental indicator of longer life , we are all living longer. I see.more.and more handicap spots being installed, and they are almost always full.
I don't know exactly but your AIME Average indexed monthly earnings - are indexed to inflation, and looks back at your best 35 years - whenever those were. So yes, more than likely your most current income will replace an earlier year, but lets say you were a mechanic for 35 years. Adjusted for inflation you may have made more money 35 years ago?
Also, at best case in the above example - another year of working improves your SS by some amount by less than 1/35th. So lets say an earlier year adjusted for inflation was 1/2 of your current. Your improving by 1/2 of 1/35th - so 1/70 or 1.4%.
Again, lots of nuances, but this is how I understand it.
It can make a bigger difference for someone that had not worked 35 years. My wife will be in that camp because like @Pablo 's wife, my wife stayed home with the kids for quite a while. Of course the fund will be depleted long before were of age, so we shall see. Not counting on any of it.
Well the word is out, and more people than ever are applying for them. Every human condition and reasoning they are now being issued for.
I know first hand for young families as well.
Soon everyone will have one and they will be useless.
When first instituted they were for physically disabled people that needed the room for as an example a wheel chair. Now it’s for any disability and also not just physical disabilities.
Along the coast whoever “scores” one gets free beach parking too.
It’s sad in that it limits the disabled that really need it.
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So you must not shop at WalMart, COSTCO, or any major grocery stores!
From AARP (a trusted source)
The survivor benefit is generally calculated on the benefit your late spouse was receiving from Social Security at the time of death (or was entitled to receive, based on age and earnings history, if he or she had not yet claimed benefits). The actual amount of your payment will differ according to your age and family circumstance:
As previously noted, if you have reached full retirement age, you get 100 percent of the benefit your spouse was (or would have been) collecting.
If you claim survivor benefits between age 60 and your full retirement age, you will receive between 71.5 percent and 99 percent of the deceased’s benefit. The percentage gets higher the older you are when you claim.
If you claim in your 50s as a disabled spouse, the survivor benefit is 71.5 percent of your late spouse's benefit.
If you apply on the basis of caring for a child who is under 16 or disabled, you can collect 75 percent of the late spouse’s benefit, regardless of your age.
https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/questions-answers/social-security-spouse-dies.html
There may be some conflation of spousal benefits and survivor benefits terminology.
See my latest reply (#92) to @Tom NJ
Sometimes SS brick and motor office is helpful, other times not. A couple years ago the hold time when calling SSA in Washington (state) was forever. I ran a few cordless phone batteries dry, lol, I really meant ...
Finally a sympathetic and well-versed SS office manager gave me a hotline number to check on my wife's paperwork that was delayed a month - and the clock was running (down to days!) on her Medicare cutover.
The math is not that simple; the calculations, weighting and correction factors are pretty involved.
Your early income has an inflation factor applied to bring it to near a current day value. If you were making decent money in the 80's and 90's - you may be surprised.
example: I beat my wife's Benefit by hundreds a month - and she paid in more for a 43 year work history with extremely high earnings her last four years of work - and I wasn't working at all in the five years before I applied. I had zero earnings.
The SSA.gov estimator on your page when you log in is pretty close to what you may receive when - though their COLA crystal ball is a bit cloudy.
I see WAY too many people "handicapped". Of course I know not every handicap is visible, etc. But for example I have seen a group of young men park in the handicap space with a handicap sticker and plate then run like mad when its raining to get inside the WalMart out of the rain. They looked like part of a basketball team.
Harris Co. (Houston TX) had a scandal years ago where tons of people had the stickers, parking all over downtown until someone got suspicious and checked it all out. It turned out there was a ton of fraud in the issuance of the permits. Hundreds of able bodied people had them.
Its kind of like welfare. Too many people get them that don't really deserve them. Its unfair to everybody else, especially the truly handicapped people.
Interesting… I looked up my last paycheck and there is money going to OASDI, as well as money going to my TRS retirement. On the TRS website, there is mention of some school districts not participating in social security, so maybe that’s what’s going on. I’m pretty sure I’d be getting something. I have at least 10 years of other full-time work, including five years of Federal Government work.
I always had better luck and service with the SS office. Find one in a small town and you will get better service and advice. You can go to any.There may be some conflation of spousal benefits and survivor benefits terminology.
See my latest reply (#92) to @Tom NJ
Sometimes SS brick and motor office is helpful, other times not. A couple years ago the hold time when calling SSA in Washington (state) was forever. I ran a few cordless phone batteries dry, lol, I really meant ...
Finally a sympathetic and well-versed SS office manager gave me a hotline number to check on my wife's paperwork that was delayed a month - and the clock was running (down to days!) on her Medicare cutover.
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The other piece of it is there's a SS cap. It's not outlandish, it's currently $168,600. There are likely many people who will draw the maximum, which again, is not earth shattering, I think it's in the $3,000s. Just googled it, $3,822.
Maybe part of the consideration is that if you take it at 62, you can only make so much without reducing the benefit? What then? Is it that I get $xxx but work 40+ hours a week, and get a lesser amount, but work 0 hours a week, and am happy and can do the things I always wanted to? I don't know the answer but follow this thread with interest
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When we got married, my wife changed her name, and was issued her sister's SS#. DOH!!! I thought it would be a nightmare, but it wasn't. She went to the local office and it was fixed.
