Mark Singer: I get a number of questions with regards to social
security. And there are two today that I want to share with
you. One is the new full retirement age number for the
year of 2022. And the other, which is a very important
question for baby boomers, which is, Will Social Security be
there for me, so I'm going to share this with you. But before
I do, subscribe to my channel, I have over 30 years experience in
this business. And I want to share with you my conversations
with my clients so that you can learn from them. So I have a
question for you. It's interesting, I asked all of my
clients or prospects this question, I get a different
answer every time how many social security strategies are
actually available to you. And the number I typically get is
somewhere between six and 10, or there abouts. But the reality is
this somewhere around 567 Different claiming strategies.
So no wonder people are confused, concerned, a little
fearful of not actually maximizing their social security
income. And this is backed up by a study that was done a couple
of years ago from United income that indicated that 96% of
people take Social Security at the wrong time. It also
indicated that most people are better off waiting until 72
claim with 43% of adults actually better off claiming
before 70. And the big takeaway from the study was that by
claiming at the right time, more than half of retirees would see
their income in their 70s and 80s rise by more than 25%. So I
really feel it's important on my end to empower you with as much
information as possible so you're not leaving money on the
table, money, you may be depending on so that you can
pursue your retirement goals. So first, let's address the issue
of the new full retirement age number starting 2022. So let's
give a little bit of history from 1935 to 1983, the full
retirement age was 65 for everyone. And then in 1983,
there was some legislation that changed some of the social
security rules. And they indicated that they were going
to increase full retirement age from 65, to age 67. But it
actually took somewhere around 2022 years for this to actually
be enforced and implemented. And since then, until this year,
what has happened is the following. So what we've all
been working off of until this year, is that if your year of
birth, was 1943, through 1954, your full retirement age was 66.
And if you were born in 1960, or later, it was 67. And anything
in between it was prorated. Like for me, I'm 1955. So I'm 66 and
two months. But that caused for a lot of confusion. Well,
starting this year, it's actually been made simpler,
because for those who are turning 62 This year, and moving
forward, there's only one full retirement age now. Age 67
Period, end of conversation Now, having said that, it may change
looking forward, right. But for right now, looking forward for
those of you who are turning 62 This year, and those who were
younger than that your full retirement age now is a very
simplified standardized 67. So I want to go into the big question
I get, which is will Social Security be there for me, but
before I do that, in my recent book, don't outlive your money
in retirement. The second chapter is devoted exclusively
to Social Security. So go up to my banner here and click on free
chapter. I'll get you the free chapter. It'll give you a little
bit more clarity about what the answers are to some of the
questions that you may have. So you can make sure you don't take
your income from Social Security at the wrong time. So
let's go into this. So the big question is will Social Security
be there for me, as you can see on this next slide, the OASDI
trust by the way, do you know what that stands for? Old age
survivor disability insurance program may be able to change
that name, we no longer you know, we don't feel old. But the
fund, believe it or not, is still growing. Now the trust
fund balance on December 31 2019, as you can see was 2.897
trillion. And based on the incomes and outflows 12 months
later, at the end of 2020, it was 2.908 trillion. But as you
can see on the next slide, and this is assuming, and it's a big
assumption, without any reform at all, the benefits will fall
to about 78% of the amount that Social Security is currently
guaranteed in the year 2034. So in other words, they will be
able to pay out 78 cents on the dollar for all those who are
already in. Now, that does not mean that they're going
bankrupt. That means if there is no reform, then they will be
paying a little bit less than what we have been getting. So
the question is, what needs to happen in order to avoid that.
So as you can see on the next slide, there are a number of
different options here to help to remedy the situation. They
can increase maximum earnings subject to the Social Security
tax, currently, it's 147,000. They could raise the normal
retirement age. And as you can see, you know, 67, for those
born in 1960, or later, you know, no doubt with the actual
actuarial tables going up and life expectancy moving out that
that seems like it would be something that would be pursued,
you could lower benefits for future retirees and the fourth
one, which is interesting, which is reducing the cost of living
adjustments, which is assumed at this point by the trustees to be
approximately 2.6%. But if you think about it, Social Security,
sort of like a pension, but not like a pension, because pensions
don't have cost of living increases where Social Security
does. So this might be a good area to address. So I hope that
these have helped you to understand a couple of the major
questions that are out there so you can have more information so
you make the right decision.