Social Security Changes 2015/2016

In this hour, Joe and Al discuss recent Social Security changes and which claiming strategies you shouldn’t miss out on if you qualify (restricted application and file & suspend). Find out how you can make more informed decisions when incorporating Social Security into your overall financial strategies. The two finish off the hour explaining why working even one extra year can have a huge impact on your retirement.

1:59 “Money will have to last retirees a lot longer, so that’s longevity risk”

7:29 “More older adults are retiring with outstanding debt”

11:32 “If you’re 62 and older before the end of last year, you could still file a restricted application—I’ll explain what that means in a second. Also, you have another deadline: April 30^th: file for your benefits and then suspend them; these are the two things that are changing”

12:49 “The spousal benefit is half of the spouse’s benefit”

14:00 “This (restricted application) allows you to have some sort of income and still receive that 8% delayed retirement credit…so everyone who turned 62 before the end of last year—that still applies to you”

16:43 “No Social Security benefits are taxable in California—zero. You don’t pay California taxes on Social Security”

17:34 “Congress just got rid of a few Social Security claiming strategies this year, so the new rules make it more important than ever to make informed decisions when incorporating Social Security into your overall financial strategies”

18:44“Those final few years that you actually work make a big, big difference in the success or failure of retirement. Let me go over a few reasons”

18:55 “If you wait another year, your Social Security payments are going to be bigger. For every year that you wait, if you’re already age 66, you’ll get an 8% raise the following year”

19:15 “Another thing people don’t realize is that your Social Security benefits are based upon your 35 highest years of wages, and chances are your last year of working is a lot higher than some of your earlier years, so you have higher wages and higher benefits that way too”

23:40 “A lot of you, when you really sit down and look at your situation, it’s a little bit tighter than you might want it to be, so if you work an extra year or two it can make a pretty big difference in your retirement”

34:55 “There’s a lot of new things with the new tax bill that can benefit you from a permanent basis”