Mark Singer: Are you aware that you could potentially receive a 16%
increase in your Social Security benefit for the year of 2023?
Some may not be aware of this, and I want to share with you
some of the details that may apply to your situation. But
before we get there, subscribe to my channel, I have over 30
years in this business, and I want to share with you the
conversations I have with my clients so you can make sure
that you are getting as much as you can for your retirement
journey. Much has been made recently of the inflationary
impact on a lot of different pieces in our economy and our
retirement income, and the inflationary pressures, if you
will, have two sides to them first, the downside of inflation
is that everything is costing more. And in today's society
with supply chain issues, you may not even be able to get the
goods and services you're looking for even at an inflated
price. That's the downside of inflation. There is an upside to
it, though, and it's in regards to your Social Security benefit.
So let's step back for a moment to just understand how the
Social Security trustees calculate the increases for the
next year for your cost of living adjustment. Now, the CPI
W for wages is what the Social Security trustees look at. As
you can see, through the most recent numbers, there is a year
over year increase of a little over 9%. But what the Social
Security trustees do in terms of pegging the next year's increase
is look at next quarters numbers, and then reported in
October. So the months that are really important are the three
next months, as you can see here in this next slide. So if these
numbers remain the same, and certainly no guarantees, you
could potentially expect an 8-9% increase for next year for your
Social Security benefits. So how do you get 16% out of that? Let
me address that. Now I want to talk to two different sets of
viewers, those who are already receiving Social Security,
you've already started your claims, you're getting your
benefits, and you will receive in 2023, somewhere in the
vicinity of a eight to 9% increase on your existing
benefits. But the 16% is for those who have made the decision
to defer claiming their benefits. How does this work?
Once you reach full retirement age, you get delayed credits of
8% per year. But what you may not be aware of is not only do
you get the delayed credits of 8% annually, but you also get
whatever the cost of living adjustment is going to be for
that particular year for 2022. If you had not claimed and you
would deferred your benefit, your benefits would have
increased by the 8% plus the 5.9% cost of living adjustment.
So that future benefit would have been increased by 13.9%.
For next year, believe it or not, you could get not only the
8% Delayed credit, but also that 8% Or potentially more cost of
living adjustment on top of the base that you've already earned.
So if you made that decision to defer, it looks like that you
are really going to get rewarded for the rest of your retirement.
If you have further questions about your Social Security,
click on our banner and click on the free chapter. I've devoted
the entire second chapter of my new book don't outlive your
money in retirement to Social Security. And this will answer
more of your questions.