Ask Larry
Financial Safety Planning, Inc.
Right this moment’s Social Safety column addresses questions on taking Social Safety advantages whereas incomes revenue earlier than full retirement age, potential results of international pensions on US Social Safety advantages and figuring out whether or not an ex has handed away. Larry Kotlikoff is a Professor of Economics at Boston College and the founder and president of Financial Safety Planning, Inc.
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Have Social Safety questions of your individual you’d like answered? Ask Larry about Social Safety right here.
Can I Acquire Social Safety Advantages Now Whereas I am Nonetheless Working?
Hello Larry, I’m 65 and nonetheless work. Somebody instructed me I may accumulate my Social Safety advantages now I need to retire subsequent 12 months. How can I understand how a lot will I get a month and may I accumulate now or ought to I wait till I retire? Thanks, Tim
Hello Tim, Till you attain your full retirement age (FRA), there’s a restrict on how a lot you may earn and nonetheless have the ability to accumulate your entire Social Safety advantages. Except you attain FRA earlier than the top of this 12 months, Social Safety would wish to withhold $1 of your advantages for every $2 that you simply earn in extra of $19,560 in 2022.
Nonetheless, within the 12 months you attain FRA you may earn extra with out shedding any advantages, and there is not any restrict on how a lot you may earn and nonetheless be paid your entire advantages beginning with the month you attain FRA.
Your FRA can be age 66 and 4 months if you happen to had been born in 1956, or 66 and 6 months if you happen to had been born in 1957. So whether or not or not you could possibly work and nonetheless be paid advantages depends upon your month and 12 months of delivery, how a lot you are incomes and your profit price. Even when your earnings allow you to begin amassing advantages earlier than your FRA although, your profit price can be completely decreased for age for any months that you simply’re paid advantages previous to FRA.
Your month-to-month profit price depends upon your earnings historical past. Social Safety retirement advantages are primarily based on a median of an individual’s highest 35 years of Social Safety lined wage-indexed earnings, and the upper than common is, the upper your profit price shall be. Chances are you’ll need to think about using my firm’s software program — Maximize My Social Safety or MaxiFi Planner — to make sure your family receives the very best lifetime advantages. Social Safety calculators offered by different firms or non-profits might present correct solutions in the event that they had been constructed with excessive care. Greatest, Larry
Why Did My Social Safety Profit Go Down?
Hello Larry, I’ve labored and lived within the US for 10 years earlier than amassing SSDI. I lately turned 65 after which utilized for spousal advantages. Then began receiving my CPP advantages and my US Social Safety profit has been docked by greater than my Canadian advantages. Social Safety is looking it a non-covered pension. Why? Thanks, Ariana
Hello Ariana, It sounds just like the discount in your profit price is probably going because of the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP). The WEP provision causes an individual’s Social Safety retirement or incapacity (SSDI) profit price to be calculated utilizing a much less beneficiant calculation technique if the particular person can be receiving a pension primarily based on their earnings that had been exempt from US Social Safety taxes.
So if you happen to began amassing a Canadian pension primarily based in your work in Canada, that pension may trigger your SSDI profit price to be decreased.
There’s a WEP assure provision that limits any discount in your US profit price to not more than 50% of the gross quantity of your non-covered pension. I haven’t got sufficient data to know whether or not or not your profit price is right, however if you happen to suppose that it is probably not you would possibly need to take into account submitting an enchantment. Greatest, Larry
How Do I Know If My Ex Has Handed Away?
Hello Larry, To not be indelicate, however how do I do know if my ex has handed away? I assumed Social Safety would inform me. I can provide his full identify, DOB and SSN. However in Get What’s Yours (revised version), Larry writes that Social Safety won’t know whether or not an ex died and that I would want to tell them.
I’m 67 and my ex is 65, and we had been married for 13 years. We’ve been divorced greater than 20 years and I by no means remarried. We have now no youngsters collectively and no mutual associates, and reside in numerous components of the nation — in different phrases, no contact. Figuring out whether or not I may obtain divorced survivor’s advantages may make an enormous distinction in maxing out my advantages. Thanks, Monica
Hello Monica, Normally Social Safety does actually know if an individual has died. Dying data is reported to Social Safety by funeral properties and through interfaces with the demise registries in lots of states.
Nonetheless, it is potential that Social Safety would not pay attention to an individual’s demise, and in lots of instances the privateness act prevents Social Safety from sharing the knowledge that they do have of their data with anybody aside from the person themselves.
So in different phrases, you may’t essentially depend on Social Safety to have details about the demise of an ex. However if you happen to’re doubtlessly eligible for advantages on the file of an ex, Social Safety ought to within the majority of instances have the ability to clarify your choices in a fashion that may let you realize whether or not or not your ex resides or deceased.
For one factor, the privateness act mainly does not apply as soon as a person is deceased, so if Social Safety’s data present that your ex is deceased then they need to have the ability to share that data with you. Greatest, Larry
