Social Security is going to be important for most people who are planning for retirement. With this in mind, understanding the details is key, and we would like to take a look at a couple of things you should know.
If you are not yet receiving Social Security, your full retirement age will be between 66 and 67 years of age depending on the year during which you were born. However, you have options.
You don’t have to wait until you reach full retirement age to apply for Social Security. Once you reach the age of 62 you can apply, but you must understand the fact that you will receive a reduced benefit as a result.
On the other side of the spectrum, you may delay applying until you are as old as 70 and receive delayed retirement credits in return. As a result, your benefit will be increased when you do in fact start to receive Social Security payouts.
If you are married, you and your spouse will each receive the benefit that you have respectively earned. That is, unless one of you is entitled to less than half of the other. In such a case the spouse who was drawing the lesser amount would see his or her benefit raised up to half of what the higher earning spouse was receiving.
These are a couple of things to consider when you are planning for the future. To gain an in-depth understanding of how best to take advantage of your Social Security eligibility while planning for a comfortable future, the wise course of action is to sit down and discuss a holistic strategy with a qualified and experienced San Jose retirement planning lawyer.
