Social Security - collecting early or later (55, blogs, friend)
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"The bottom line
If you have a choice and are in good health, think seriously about waiting as long as you can to take your benefits (but no later than age 70). A long retirement coupled with uncertainty about markets and inflation are the biggest risks. Delaying Social Security, if you can, is effectively an insurance policy against those challenges."
odds are the poor shlep can not stop at 62 , spend down even more assets to live on and delay.
that is an argument for working longer and delaying .
that is a poor argument for a poor shlep spending down even more money trying to afford to delay to 70 when they retire at 62 or pre fra.
in fact them spending down to delay may leave them in a dangerous situation .
Since when is 62 the appropriate retirement age? That's early retirement. Even my dad (who would be 113 if he was alive today) retired at 65. And, he only retired because of his health. And, he did physical work that was also technical.
It's just that you live in la la land there in NY with the wall street boyz.
then they are working longer ….if they could leave at 62 and don’t then they are continuing to work longer so they delay longer .
that is what i said . working longer and delaying is the way to do it if one is underfunded .
but when that work stops most are filing because they have to file.
so you are talking in circles .
that poor shlep usually can’t afford to delay when the working stops.
the ones with the CHOICE are the ones that can safely support themselves while delaying and have the money to do so
like perry said , he is 68 and was planning on 70 .,but now that he is 68 he does not have a big difference anymore and he rather stop the bleeding and use the ss money .
so even when close to 70 , it is not going to give them. that much more if they have little savings for retirement and have to spend it down to get that little extra .
which they can likely match just by not spending it down and having it grow going forward .
so you can argue it either way but he fact is it takes money or a pension to delay while not working because you have premiums to pay for that cost of delaying.
the silver bullet for retirement is not delaying for most as that just takes from one pocket to fill another pocket .
the silver bullet is WORKING LONGER AND DELAYING . ESPECIALLY IF ONE HAS AN UNDER FUNDED RETIREMENT
THAT CAN HAVE THE EFFECT OF HAVING ANOTHER 800k saved
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-30-2023 at 02:35 AM..
I know people that worked to 65, 66, 72, 80. My BIL is still working at 78.
62 is not normal retirement age. 62 is late retirement age I guess if you have gobs of money... ...but, out here in the real world people do need to work...
You know, and they also live in houses (another thing you just rail against the idea). But, you know, here we are in America instead of the United States of Wall Street.
you are trying to make it a wealth thing but it isn’t .
people retiring before 70 or even fra happens on all incomes in all places .
most can not afford to delay so you are arguing selling a bill of goods to people who cannot afford to retire and not collect and so they cannot delay any longer then they stop working .
if you want to argue for a silver bullet for an under funded retirement and working longer while delaying i agree 100% .
but without the working longer part you are talking about the near impossible for most
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-30-2023 at 04:01 AM..
we can argue for it all we want, but most who delay are only delaying because they are working .
the rest for the most part can’t or won’t .
people are working longer so of course filing ages goes up .
so it’s one of those things that sounds great on paper like PERRY said but much more difficult to actually want to do
personally i am now a head not delaying ..stopping the bleeding of the money mattered a lot ..
so it isn’t delaying or not but what that money one would spend delaying is doing if it wasn’t being spent down
if the answer is not growing then that is a different outcome .
if i was able to collect i would have done it at 62 because the difference between 62and 70-would mean eventually paying a premium of 40 to 50k a year for 8 years .
so i would be buying an annuity for 400k or more depending on colas
400k over those 8 years grew far more money then that annuity would have for me and should still continue to grow a lot more over the next to to 3 decades .
like kitces calculated , beating a conservative balanced portfolio would take until age 95 by delaying.
so there is no rule that says delaying gives you more ….whether it’s more or less by delaying depends on a lot of personal situations most of all is life expectancy.
so i would never tell someone you will likely have more delaying as a blanket statement because it may not be true..
one pocket may get more but the other pocket gets depleted down.
delaying and working longer is a whole different situation
Let's get our terms straight. "Delaying" happens between FRA and 70. Taking SS before FRA results in permanently reduced benefits. Taking SS before FRA is taking it Early and is subject to a cut in your fully earned benefit amount.
You want to calc your benefit from 62; but, you started collecting at 65. Then, you want to pretend that was $400,000 on Day One. No, I'm sorry, that was $40k after one year (so, that $3,333.33 per month would not have been the same as $400,000 at 62 years of age when you had not started collecting your SS benefit. You are not making a proper calculation there.
And, no, not everyone who would choose to delay (which is between FRA and 70) would need to withdraw that SS amount from their 401k. They might choose to live on less and conserve. After all they are retired and did not plan for full income as if they were working full time.
not getting what is called a reduction or gaining what is called delayed credits is another issue .
someone not taking it at 62 and DELAYING taking it until fra is still DELAYING taking it.
i delayed from 62 to 65 and i wasn’t fra and that certainly is delaying taking it
You Earn your full retirement benefit by 62. However, your benefit is reduced every month/year prior to your Full Retirement Age. You are penalized for claiming it earlier than Full Retirement Age.
Why do I know I have earned my full retirement benefit at 62? Because I have calculated it by hand. They literally reduce the benefit they are willing to pay you.
there was once a very nice list of criteria in motley fool for deciding when NOT to delay
1. Your health is poor
Delaying your Social Security filing might boost your monthly benefits. However, it won't necessarily leave you with a higher lifetime payout.
For example, those with poor health may have shorter lifespans. And in that case, you might collect more Social Security income during your lifetime by filing for benefits at an earlier age, not a later one.
2. You've lost your job and can't find work
If you're working and collecting a paycheck, you probably don't need Social Security income to pay your expenses. But if you're laid off from work and struggling to find another job, a delayed Social Security filing could mean living off credit cards to keep up with your bills. And that's not a good thing.
Unfortunately, people who lose their jobs later in life commonly struggle to find work -- often because employers are hesitant to take a chance on older workers for fear they're on the cusp of retirement. If that's the boat you've landed in, a delayed Social Security filing may not be in the cards.
3. Your job is harming your health
Maybe you haven't lost your job, and you have the option to keep working as long as you'd like. If your job is harming your health -- whether physically, mentally, or both -- then delaying Social Security could mean getting stuck there longer. And that's not worth doing.
It's one thing to stay at a job that isn't too much of a burden so you can delay your Social Security filing and, ideally, keep growing your retirement savings. But if your job is causing you so much stress that it's become harmful to your health, or if you're physically struggling to keep working, a delayed filing just isn't worth it.
It's easy to see why holding off on claiming Social Security is something you may want to do. But if these circumstances apply to you, an earlier filing may be necessary. That could mean claiming benefits at your exact FRA or even filing earlier since you're allowed to do so starting at age 62.
i will add another and that is not working and depleting savings dangerously low trying to delay .
i think if one has to deplete more then a quarter or 1/3 of their savings to delay it likely isn’t a good idea as one may not have the luxury of not working and affording to delay
Last edited by mathjak107; 05-30-2023 at 03:03 AM..
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