I appreciated the article's good advice to be cautious about information provided by Social Security staff. My experience with Social Security when enrolling in both SS and Medicare could not have been better but I'd also done a lot of research (especially Mike Piper's book) and didn't need any advice. So - the contrarian view: The author believes it was a mistake for her to claim SS earlier than FRA and of course that may have been true for her specific circumstances. But - a blanket statement that this is always, or even generally, a mistake for the lower earning spouse is just wrong. Mike Piper in both his book and his excellent calculator makes the point that usually a couple's claiming decision is best made on joint life expectancy. The surviving spouse will receive the higher of the two benefits. Again depending upon the couple's circumstances the higher lifetime aggregate benefit decision is often for the lower earning spouse to claim earlier than FRA. Piper's calculator demonstrates this. So - this is no more than a quibble but earlier is not always a mistake.
Comments
I appreciated the article's good advice to be cautious about information provided by Social Security staff. My experience with Social Security when enrolling in both SS and Medicare could not have been better but I'd also done a lot of research (especially Mike Piper's book) and didn't need any advice. So - the contrarian view: The author believes it was a mistake for her to claim SS earlier than FRA and of course that may have been true for her specific circumstances. But - a blanket statement that this is always, or even generally, a mistake for the lower earning spouse is just wrong. Mike Piper in both his book and his excellent calculator makes the point that usually a couple's claiming decision is best made on joint life expectancy. The surviving spouse will receive the higher of the two benefits. Again depending upon the couple's circumstances the higher lifetime aggregate benefit decision is often for the lower earning spouse to claim earlier than FRA. Piper's calculator demonstrates this. So - this is no more than a quibble but earlier is not always a mistake.
Post: Bewildering Benefits
Link to comment from April 8, 2023