Get What''s Yours 1 GETTING PAUL NEARLY $50,000 IN EXTRA BENEFITS OVER TENNIS This book was born of a simple question-How old are Paul and his wife? Larry and Paul were taking a break from what they call tennis, shooting the breeze, since talking is easier than running after errant shots. Larry launched into a harangue, as he often does; this one was about Social Security''s impossible complexity. Paul was listening, as usual, with his skeptical journalist''s ear. Or, maybe, since it was Larry, just half-listening. Then Larry asked, How old were Paul and his wife and when were they planning to take their Social Security benefits? Proudly, Paul told Larry not to worry: he and his wife had it all figured out. They would both wait until 70, when Paul would get something like $40,000 a year instead of the $30,000 or so if he took his benefits at 66, his "full"-but not "maximum"-retirement age, which was coming right up. Paul had been reading and saving those annual green statements from the Social Security Administration for years with their "Estimated Benefits." He''d been reading his wife''s, too.
As the family''s financial planner, he knew just how much they were entitled to. But how old are you and Jan? Larry asked. What difference does it make? said Paul. Like I say, we''re both waiting until 70. It makes a big difference, said Larry. Okay, Paul''s wife would soon turn 66; he, 65. Here''s what you do, said Larry, never at a loss when it comes to speaking in the imperative. Jan should apply for her Social Security retirement benefit when she turned 66, but then "suspend" it.
That is, she would make herself eligible for the benefit but wouldn''t take it. Then, said Larry, when you (Paul) turn 66, you apply just for a spousal benefit. When you each hit 70, you do as originally planned-you each take your own retirement benefits, at which point they will start at their highest possible values. Or, Larry continued, clearly thinking aloud, you apply and suspend at 66 and Jan begins taking the spousal benefit, since you earned more than she did, didn''t you? Paul can be quite dismissive of what he considers Larry''s flights of fantasy, Larry being the epitome of "often overstated, but never in doubt." Yet Paul had begun to pay close attention. Having reported on business and economics on public television for decades, Paul understood the intricacies of business, finance, and economics better than most Americans (though admittedly, that may not be saying much). The exceptions, however, were the professional economists he''d befriended in the course of his career. Larry was one of them, and among the most deeply versed in financial planning.
Spousal benefits? Paul had vaguely heard of them. He had, however, never imagined he or his wife were eligible for any, though, had you asked him why not, he couldn''t have told you. Spousal benefits for four years. That should be almost $50,000, Larry quickly estimated. An aside is in order here. Larry is a world-famous scold or, he will tell you, a dead-on Cassandra, with respect to Social Security''s insolvency. Advising people like Paul to take extra benefits from the system while himself decrying the system''s funding shortfall was not what Paul expected to hear. (More on that in Chapter 18.
) But Larry believes it''s not fair that some beneficiaries get more than others simply because they know the system''s rules. And Paul and Phil agree with him. Fifty thousand dollars? Explain, Paul said. Well, if Jan''s Social Security full retirement benefit were, say, $24,000, you''d be eligible to get half that as a spousal benefit: about $12,000 a year. And if you get $12,000 a year from age 66 to age 70, that''s $48,000. If, on the other hand, Jan takes the spousal benefit on your Social Security earnings record, she''ll get more per year but for only three years instead of four, because she''ll be 67 by the time you become eligible, only three years from 70. But still, that would mean . etc.
However number-laden the trees, the forest was plain to see: there seemed to be an unambiguous strategy for maximizing benefits that Paul and Jan were eligible to collect, having contributed for decades, but had been entirely unaware of. If this is true, said Paul, I''m buying you dinner. Anywhere in the world. Boston will do, said Larry, who also lives there. But there are dozens of really important details like this one. What we should really do (we''re compressing here) is write a book. And we should include Phil Moeller, a retirement expert who''s already spoken with me about such a project. He''s been a financial journalist for years, and has written article after article for U.
S. News & World Report and Money about retirees who collectively leave tens of billions of dollars in Social Security benefits on the table by failing to claim everything to which they are entitled. Plus, Phil loves the Red Sox (although not as much as the Baltimore Orioles) and the New England Patriots. Fast-forward. Paul''s wife came of age (66). She filed and suspended-by phone. The person she talked to couldn''t have been nicer. Paul came of age.
He filed for a spousal benefit. The Social Security woman on the phone had never heard of file-and-suspend, checked with her supervisor, and came back on the line to thank him for enlightening her about a strategy she could now share with everyone who called. When they hit 70, both Paul and his wife called again, were again reprocessed-graciously, competently, and within minutes, though his wife was nonplussed when asked if she''d ever been a nun. And Paul has since taken Larry to dinner, and a pretty good dinner at that. SOCIAL SECURITY VERBATIM YOU''RE RIGHT THERE (AND WE''RE RIGHT HERE) "The regulations that require a notice for an initial determination contemplate sending a correct notice. We consider that an initial determination is correct even if we send an incorrect notice." ALL QUOTES FROM OFFICIAL SOCIAL SECURITY RULES GET WHAT''S YOURS-AND YOU DON''T EVEN HAVE TO BUY LARRY A MEAL We''ve written this book to help people maximize the Social Security benefits they have earned and therefore, we believe, deserve to get. We three authors-Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, journalist and aging expert Phil Moeller, and PBS NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman-have spent years studying the system and making it intelligible to the public.
Why have we bothered to write this book? Because Social Security is, far and away, Americans'' most important retirement asset. And that''s not only true for people of modest means. Middle-income and upper-income households actually have the most to gain, in total amounts, from getting Social Security right. Toting up lifetime benefits, even low-earning couples may be Social Security millionaires. And except for the Bill Gateses and Warren Buffetts of the world-whose percentage of the population was exceedingly modest last we checked-Social Security is a very meaningful income source. So, this book is for nearly every one of you who''s ever earned a paycheck and wants every Social Security benefit dollar to which you are entitled-entitled because you paid for it. You earned it. It''s yours.
It can even be yours if you never contributed a penny to the system but have or had a spouse, living or dead, who did. It may even be yours if you spent some of all of your career working for employers who did not have to participate in Social Security. Perhaps you wondered, when you got your first paycheck, what the huge deduction for that four-letter word "FICA" referenced. If you learned that it stood for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, you might have been none too pleased at first, but then assuaged by hearing that these "contributions"-week after week, month after month, year after year, out of each and every paycheck (up to a limit)-would lead to higher retirement benefits. Even those of us who aren''t superrich, but have earned and saved a lot, view Social Security as a critical lifeline. We realize, after the Crash of 2008, that no assets-not our homes, not our bonds, and certainly not our stocks-are safe from life-altering declines. We realize that even our private pensions, if we have them, may hinge on our former employer staying in business and inflation not eroding the pension''s purchasing power. (It''s the rare private-sector pension that boosts payments to protect against inflation.
) We also know that we could, with plausible breakthrough medical discoveries, live to 100 or longer. But isn''t Social Security a bigger deal for the poor? Actually, it''s not. To be sure, Social Security benefits are a crucial lifeline for lower-income beneficiaries. And, yes, Social Security benefits rise less for higher earners than do their FICA tax contributions. But benefits do rise with both time and earnings and they involve very big sums. Take, for example, a 60-year-old couple, who both stop working at that age, each partner having earned Social Security''s taxable FICA limit-the maximum taxable amount, starting at age 25. That maximum was $22,900 in wage income in 1979, when they began working; it''s $118,500 for 2015, going up every year in lockstep with the nation''s average wage increases. Running coauthor Larry''s