Social security was created in 1935 to ensure retired individuals and their spouses would be provided for. This aimed to help those that had simply become too old to work.
If you’re worried about losing the benefits because they stop at a certain point, there’s no need. In some cases they even continue for spouses of those that die while collecting benefits.
65 million Americans collected around $1 trillion dollars in benefits in 2020. Many were retired people, and some were disabled or spouses of retired individuals.
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If you want to make the most you can out of retirement, that’s where age becomes important.
The longer you wait until the age of 70 (the longest you can wait) the bigger your monthly payments will be.
You can retire by age 62 if you’re willing to lose up to 30% of the potential income, wait until your full retirement age of 66 or 67. If you can wait until 70, you’ll get more for every year.
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Once the benefits begin, you will not lose them and if your spouse survives you, they may collect part of those monthly payments.
Will there be enough funding to pay for social security benefits in the future?
Many are growing concerned after projections show the funding for social security may be depleted by 2034.
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If that’s the case, at that point there would only be enough to pay for 78% of the benefits people are entitled to.
Rep. John Larson introduced the Social Security 2100 Act which would provide more funding.
This would push the deadline to 2038 and hopefully give enough time to find a solution to the issue.
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