ArcaMax

My 'Ivory Tower' Is in the Basement of a Suburban Split-Level

I got an interesting email (actually, it was more like a rant) from a guy who was upset about an encounter he had with the Social Security Administration. It went on for a couple pages. I'm used to rants. After all, you just can't please everyone all the time. But here is the part of...Read more

My wife and I are celebrating our 49th wedding anniversary this week. (Although at our age, "celebrating" means maybe an extra scoop of ice cream on our next trip to Dairy Queen!)

I know we are fortunate to be reaching almost five decades of wedded bliss because I get a lot of questions from divorced women who want to know what kind of benefits...Read more

Gosh, I hate getting old! Even though my wife and I are relatively fit, when you're in your late 70s, you can't help thinking about the inevitable. We're all going to die. And even though my wife is a few years older than me, I figure I'm eventually going to be the first to buy that one-way ticket to the great beyond. So, I've started working on...Read more

Conventional wisdom has it that to get the most out of your Social Security, you should wait as long as possible to start your benefits. That's good advice for some, but not for all. There are a variety of reasons why you might want to take your benefits at 62 (the earliest you can start your Social Security) or some other point before you reach...Read more

As I write this, my wife and I are about to leave on a one-month trip to England. This has been one of our "bucket list" plans for a long time now. We've been back and forth to Europe about a half dozen-times over the years. But most of those trips were of the "if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium and if it's Wednesday, it must be Paris" variety....Read more

Q: I've heard that Social Security is cheating me and millions of other Americans out of Social Security benefits they are due because they round down to the nearest dollar when they are supposed to be rounding up. Is this true?

A: Well, it's true ... and it's false. It's true when you say that benefits are rounded down, but it's false when you...Read more

Regular readers of my column know that I try to avoid the use of Social Security jargon, abbreviations and acronyms as much as possible. That even goes as far as the name of the agency that runs the Social Security program. Although I must frequently do it, I just don't like referring to the SSA (that stands for Social Security Administration) ...Read more

Well, it's been a strange week. My inbox is normally crammed with emails from readers. But this week, there has been just a sprinkling of questions. I'd like to think it's because all of you have been reading my column for years, and maybe also have read my two books about Social Security, and so you're all now Social Security experts who've got...Read more

I've commented before how surprised I am that a high percentage of emails I get come from the relatively small group of people in this country who don't even pay into Social Security. Most of those questions come from retired or soon-to-be retired educators in those states where teachers have a separate retirement system other than Social ...Read more

If you read a recent USA Today article, you would have seen a story with this intriguing headline: "3 steps to claiming the $4,555 max monthly Social Security benefit." And if you are pushing retirement age, you would of course want to read that story and get yourself locked into a heaping serving from the Social Security gravy train.

In a ...Read more

I continually remind my readers that they shouldn't worry too much when they read or hear reports of Social Security's imminent collapse. Once Congress works up the nerve to deal with the issue (and once the American people accept the fact that the program needs reform), they will get around to passing amendments to the Social Security laws that...Read more