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Interesting info about SS

JTsyo

JTsyo

Lifer
Just playing with the calculator, I see about 2.5X difference between waiting until 70 to start or starting at 62 in lifetime benefit. Of course by the time I retire, 30+ years, SS will probably be just enough to buy you a coffin.

Anyone retiring soon might find it more useful, though hopefully you have better resources to plan with.
 
JTsyo said:
Just playing with the calculator, I see about 2.5X difference between waiting until 70 to start or starting at 62 in lifetime benefit. Of course by the time I retire, 30+ years, SS will probably be just enough to buy you a coffin.

Anyone retiring soon might find it more useful, though hopefully you have better resources to plan with.
Click to expand...

You're so vain,
you probably think this song is about you
You're so vain,
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you?
don't you?
 
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Some time last decade, I heard none of us in our generation are going to get any SS money. We're essentially feeding our parents with it at this point. True?
 
JTsyo said:
Just playing with the calculator, I see about 2.5X difference between waiting until 70 to start or starting at 62 in lifetime benefit. Of course by the time I retire, 30+ years, SS will probably be just enough to buy you a coffin.

Anyone retiring soon might find it more useful, though hopefully you have better resources to plan with.
Click to expand...

SS doesn't pay enough to buy a coffin, now. The death benefit is a whopping $255 dollars - maybe enough to buy flowers, but that's about all.
 
rh71 said:
Some time last decade, I heard none of us in our generation are going to get any SS money. We're essentially feeding our parents with it at this point. True?
Click to expand...

Not sure is serious but SS is solvent enough to pay out 100%% of promised benefits until sometime between 2028 and 2044 (most likely in 2033) when it will drop to 77% and slowly decrease to 72% at the end of their projections in 2087.

SS is also very easy to fix. Raising the eligibility age or eliminating the tax cap (without increasing the payout cap) would completely fix SS. Raising the tax cap while raising the payout cap would mostly fix SS.

So - you will most likely receive most if not all of your benefits. You should be far more concerned about health insurance and long term disability care

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/tr/2013/
 
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sixone said:
SS doesn't pay enough to buy a coffin, now. The death benefit is a whopping $255 dollars - maybe enough to buy flowers, but that's about all.
Click to expand...

Well's that's death benefit. According to the calculator in the article, if we wait until age 70, we can get about 40% of our current income. After the house is paid off, that's enough to live off. Like we all know though, this level of benefits is not sustainable.
 
There is an 8% yearly boost in benefit amounts for each year you wait from age 62 to age 70. All you have to do is know how long you'll live, and you'll know the best time to start taking benefits.
 
JTsyo said:
Well's that's death benefit. According to the calculator in the article, if we wait until age 70, we can get about 40% of our current income. After the house is paid off, that's enough to live off. Like we all know though, this level of benefits is not sustainable.
Click to expand...
Lets use my mother in law as an example who is retiring now. Draw now and she gets ~$18k/yr from them but wait till I guess its 70 and she gets I thinks its $24k/yr but she'll be like 82 before it reaches the break even point. She is opting to take the money now because with her various other retirement plans she'll be exactly at the same income she was while working. So while the reduced amount long term is there she will also be finished paying off the house and will have less NEED for income and gets to rest at ease earlier knowing her house is paid off. The reason her house isn't currently paid off is my father in law made some very bad business decisions and mortgaged the previous house to try to save a failing business. So basically house situation was a start over.

I know I probably wont ever be able to retire
 
I've worked and received relatively high pay for my age since I was 15 (lots of overtime between the ages of 18 and 30 🙂 ), so my scheduled social security at age 65 is a pretty sweet figure. I want to retire at 60, so my 401K can carry me for 5 years. Hoping all the suffering I'm doing stuffing my 401K full of cash is going to pay off then.
 
Fritzo said:
I've worked and received relatively high pay for my age since I was 15 (lots of overtime between the ages of 18 and 30 🙂 ), so my scheduled social security at age 65 is a pretty sweet figure. I want to retire at 60, so my 401K can carry me for 5 years. Hoping all the suffering I'm doing stuffing my 401K full of cash is going to pay off then.
Click to expand...
thats the way to do it.... Once I get school out of the way and actually have a decent income I will keep living like I currently do. I tell my wife every time she says our house is small that this would be a mansion back when our parents were growing up. My grandma raised 8 kids in a house half this size.
 
Fritzo said:
I've worked and received relatively high pay for my age since I was 15 (lots of overtime between the ages of 18 and 30 🙂 ), so my scheduled social security at age 65 is a pretty sweet figure. I want to retire at 60, so my 401K can carry me for 5 years. Hoping all the suffering I'm doing stuffing my 401K full of cash is going to pay off then.
Click to expand...


The online SS calculator assumes that you will earn the same as you earned last year for each year until your full retirement age. So if you retire before that, your benefit will likely not be as large as the calculator indicates.

Your benefit is based on the largest 35 years of earnings. Retiring early means some number of zero earnings years replacing what the calculator assumed would be the same as what you earned last year.
 
What happens if your spouse dies before they hit 62? Do their benefits just disappear, or does the surviving spouse still get any of their benefits?
 
kranky said:
There is an 8% yearly boost in benefit amounts for each year you wait from age 62 to age 70. All you have to do is know how long you'll live, and you'll know the best time to start taking benefits.
Click to expand...

whats the breakeven point of age 62 vs 70?
62 vs 67?
67 vs 70?

ie: how long do we have to live for the 2nd age to get more cummulative $ than the 1st?
 
Excellent, let's hope that lots of greedy Boomers screw themselves through short-sightedness and thus leave more money in the pot for their children. That would be pretty ironic.

/flamesuit
 
Ehh ... If one lives to 80, they wind up getting about the same amount total out of SS if they start collecting at 62, 70, or anywhere in between.

If you make it to 62, but expect to die before you're 80, it makes sense to start collecting right at 62.
If you make it to 62 and health is good, and you suspect you'll like past 80, then it makes sense to wait until 65 and re-evaluate your situation.

People who live to 95 are the exception and not the rule (though i agree, it's becoming more commonplace)
 
bignateyk said:
What happens if your spouse dies before they hit 62? Do their benefits just disappear, or does the surviving spouse still get any of their benefits?
Click to expand...

There are some complex rules for these cases. Surviving spouse can claim benefits either on their own record when they reach 62 or later, or they can claim surviving spouse benefits at age 60 (between 70-100% of what the spouse would have gotten), or they can have benefits immediately IF there is a minor child at home. And at any time if their benefit under their own record would be greater, they can switch. There are other rules as well.
 
JEDI said:
whats the breakeven point of age 62 vs 70?
62 vs 67?
67 vs 70?

ie: how long do we have to live for the 2nd age to get more cummulative $ than the 1st?
Click to expand...

According to Schwab, which looked at early, retirement age of 66, and late benefits:

62 (early) vs. 66 (Full Retirement Age): Break-even age is between 77 and 78.
62 (early) vs. 70 (late): Break-even age is between 80 and 81.
66 (Full Retirement Age) vs. 70 (late): Break-even age is between 83 and 84
 
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