Here is a detailed explanation of the components of your Social Security benefits statement. You can get this statement online at any time.
social security administration
Friends With (Social Security) Benefits
Social Security is arguably one of the most important cash flows for individuals in retirement. Many individuals have paid into the system for years, and in turn will be eligible for reduced benefits as early as age 62, or at their full retirement age (between ages 66 and 67). The decision on when to start collecting benefits is important and can impact your retirement cash flows for your remaining retirement. This decision should not be taken lightly, and it should not be left to informal conversations with friends, coworkers, etc. In other words, don’t base your decision to take benefits based on what your friends have done. Your situation is different. And in most cases, your decision is final. There are several strategies that may be employed when collecting benefits. Such strategies include taking benefits early at a reduced amount, delaying benefits for a higher amount, spousal retiree benefits, and […]
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How to Get Your Social Security Statement
One of the requests we make when doing retirement or Social Security claiming plans for clients is for the clients to bring in their Social Security statements. As many readers are aware, these statements can be retrieved online from the Social Security website. Below is a step by step process to retrieve your statement online. Go to https://secure.ssa.gov/RIL/SiView.do Click on “Create an Account” and agree to the Terms of Service Enter your personal information on the following page You will be required to answer questions related to your identity and background (be careful – answering these questions wrong will require you to call or go into the local office) Set up your account with a username and password. You should then be able to view and retrieve your statement, earning history, etc. If you’re leery of giving your personal information online, you can go into your local Social Security office […]
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SSA Updates File & Suspend Guidance
You can listen to this article by using the podcast player below if you’re on the blog; if you’re reading this via RSS, there should be a “Play Now” link just below the title to access the audio. If you’re receiving this article via email, there should be a “Download Now” link within the text of the message to retrieve the audio file. Recently the Social Security Administration provided some guidance regarding how the end of file & suspend will be handled, in light of the changes that were brought about by the passage of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (BBA15). If you’ll recall, the option to suspend your Social Security benefit (part of File & Suspend) allowed one member of a couple to establish a filing date which would then provide the other member of the couple with the eligibility to file for a spousal benefit. The first […]
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Social Security Trustees Report – 2015
Every year, the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds release reports to Congress on the current financial condition and projected financial outlook of these programs. The 2015 reports, released on July 22, 2015, show that, despite some encouraging signs, both programs continue to face financial challenges that should be addressed as soon as possible, with the Disability Insurance Trust Fund needing the most urgent attention. What are the Social Security trust funds? The Social Security program consists of two parts. Retired workers, their families, and survivors of workers receive monthly benefits under the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program; disabled workers and their families receive monthly benefits under the Disability Insurance (DI) program. The combined programs are referred to as OASDI. Each program has a financial account (a trust fund) that holds the Social Security payroll taxes that are collected to pay Social Security benefits. Other income […]
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Missing your SSA-1099? Here’s How to Get It
The Social Security Administration has a lot on their plate. Along with handling the tax rolls from some 150 million-plus wage earners, servicing around 50 million retirees and surviving spouses and 11 million-plus disabled workers and dependents, there are 10,000 baby boomers reaching retirement age each day. These folks (current recipients of benefits and newly-eligible) are generating nearly half-million phone calls a day to SSA’s 800 number, and nearly 200,000 per day visiting the local offices. Every day. And they’re doing all this on administrative expenses of less than 1% of all the money they handle. Much has been written about what the SSA is not capable of doing – such as advising folks on the best way to file – but little has been written about what they are doing well. One of those things is their website.
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Fixing Social Security
For quite a while now we’ve been reading the reports from the Social Security Administration’s reviews of the status of the trust fund – where the prediction is that we’ll end up in the year 2033 with only enough money to pay 77¢ on the dollar of the promised benefits from Social Security. So far this revelation has not resulted in policymakers’ taking any actual steps to fix things, but sometime someone has to act. What can be done about fixing Social Security?
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Restricted Application is Available via the Online Application
I learn something new almost every day. Today (well, not today but recently), I learned something about the online application for Social Security that I didn’t know: the restricted application for Spousal Benefits is available as a choice when you apply using the online application system! (If you want more information on why a restricted application is important, see this article about Leaving Money on the Table.) For quite a while now I’ve been telling folks that the best way to apply for the restricted application is to go to your local office. When you get there and explain that you want to submit a restricted application for Spousal Benefits only, the first person that you talk to will likely tell you that you can’t do this, because your own retirement benefit is greater than half of your spouse’s PIA, or something like that. Then my advice has been to […]
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Notify Social Security of Major Changes in Your Life
You know how, after you’ve put your kids through college and they go off on their own, sometimes you don’t hear from them as often as you’d like? Major things occur in your kids’ lives and you don’t know about them until after the fact, possibly long after. So you get onto them about it, and ask the kids to call more often (or you call them more often) so that you can keep up with what’s going on… It’s kinda like that with the Social Security. They want to know when major changes occur in your life, as soon as possible. This is primarily due to the fact that, quite often, these changes will result in adjustment to your Social Security benefits. The first one that comes to mind is the death of a Social Security recipient. Naturally you need to notify the Social Security Administration as soon as […]
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Know Your Options When Talking to Social Security
When you get ready to file for your retirement benefits, it’s important to understand what options are available to you before you talk to the Social Security Administration. There are many ways to get a good understanding of your options, including working with your financial advisor, reading up on the subject (this blog is a good place to start!), and talking to friends and relatives who have already gone through the process. The reason it’s important to know your options is because the Social Security Administration staff that you may encounter are not trained to help you maximize your lifetime benefits – they are trained to help you maximize the benefit that you have available to you today. Often the options that the SSA staff present to you are not the best options for you in the long run. In addition, SSA staff are absolutely overwhelmed by the volume of […]
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Social Security Bend Points in 2013
When the Social Security Administration announced the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2013, this also allowed for calculation of the bend points for 2013. Bend points are the portions of your average income (Average Indexed Monthly Earnings – AIME) in specific dollar amounts that are indexed each year, based upon an obscure table called the Average Wage Index (AWI) Series. They’re called bend points because they represent points on a graph of your AIME graphed by inclusion in calculating the PIA. If you’re interested in how Bend Points are used, you can see the article on Primary Insurance Amount, or PIA. Here, however, we’ll go over how Bend Points are calculated each year. To understand this calculation, you need to go back to 1979, the year of the Three Mile Island disaster, the introduction of the compact disc and the Iranian hostage crisis. According to the AWI Series, in […]
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2013 Social Security Wage Base Projected
jb update 10/16/2012: The wage base for 2013 was confirmed at $113,700. The Social Security Administration trustees recently projected the wage base for 2013. This is the maximum amount of wage income that an individual earns for the year that is subject to Social Security withholding tax. For 2013, this amount is projected at $113,700. The new amount is $3,600 more than the 2012 wage base, which is set at $110,100, for an increase of 3.27%. Keep in mind that this is only the increase in the taxed wage base, and there is little correlation between this and any potential increase in benefits for the year. Future years’ estimated wage bases are projected as follows: 2014: $117,900 2015: $123,000 2016: $128,400 These are only projections, each year in October the SSA trustees will set the amount for the coming year.
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SS Earnings Info Online; Plus Paper Statements Are Coming Back!
From “Why Social Security?” (1937) (Photo credit: Tobias Higbie) Remember way back in 2011, when the Social Security Administration used to send you a paper statement every year? This was a useful statement, which included the estimates of your future benefit at age 62, full retirement age, and age 70, as well as a run-down of your year-by-year earnings information. Ah the good ol’ days… Sometime in 2011 the SSA stopped mailing those statements, and instead made available on their website a series of calculators which would give you your Primary Insurance Amount (the amount you’d receive at Full Retirement Age) estimate, but little else. This calculator was nowhere near as useful, and lots of folks were upset about it. Well, apparently someone at SSA listened, because now there is a new option on the SSA website, at www.socialsecurity.gov/mystatement, where you can create an account and receive essentially the same […]
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One More File and Suspend Option
Image via Wikipedia We’ve discussed the file and suspend option in multiple articles, but did you know that there is one more option for file and suspend. This is one that provides you with the opportunity to earn delayed retirement credits (DRCs) on your Social Security benefits, even if you started receiving benefits early. File and suspend is generally an option that is used by a married couple – providing a method by which one of the two can receive Spousal Benefits while the other delays receiving benefits until later, earning DRCs. (For more on this, see this article on Spousal Benefits.) This additional option is available at Full Retirement Age (FRA), just like otherwise. But what’s different about this is that the suspend option is used when you’ve already been receiving benefits, most likely early at a reduced rate, and by suspending at FRA you make yourself eligible to […]
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Proposed Social Security Wage Base Increases
October 19, 2011 update: the expected wage base increase has been confirmed as $110,100 for 2012. For more information, see this article. The Social Security Administration has released the proposed figures for the increase in the wage base for taxation for 2012 and projected some figures for the years up to 2015. This is the limited amount of income against which Social Security withholding tax is applied. For 2009 through 2011, the wage base has been static – at $106,800 for each year. The amount did not increase for these years since the average wage index (AWI) actually decreased from 2008 to 2009, and the modest increase in the index from 2009 to 2010 did not make up for the decrease in the prior year. For 2011, the AWI is expected to increase once again, by 3.08%. This sets the projected wage base for 2012 at $110,100, up a total of […]
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