When Are People Claiming Social Security?
One of the hottest topics in retirement income planning over the past several years has been how to help individuals strategize on their Social Security claiming decisions.
Philosophy of Social Security Claiming Strategies
Social Security claiming strategies can be extremely complicated. Treaties on this topic, some of which are listed in the table below, provide page after page of details, nuances, and exceptions.
Calculating Social Security Retirement Benefits
I will discuss the philosophy of claiming strategies later, but first, it is meaningful to first consider how retirement benefits are calculated.
The Social Security Administration has now followed the same approach for calculating benefits since 1979.
Introducing the Social Security Claiming Decision
For the vast majority of Americans, Social Security benefits serve as the core of a retirement income strategy. As a government-backed, inflation-adjusted monthly income for life, Social Security benefits help to manage longevity risk, inflation risk, and market risk.
A Brief History of Social Security
Recipients of Social Security benefits today are not just retirees – they’re disabled workers, spouses and young children of deceased or disabled workers, and the spouses and survivors of retirees. This was not always the case.
What’s Really Going to Happen When Social Security Runs Out of Money
One of the hottest topics in retirement income planning over the past several years has been how to help individuals strategize on their Social Security claiming decisions.
Income Annuity 101
How are different types of annuities priced? It’s not as hard as you might think, as the basic recipe requires just three ingredients:
Safe Withdrawal Rates for Retirement and the Trinity Study
One of the classic studies in the field of financial and retirement planning is the Trinity Study.
