Social Security Income Planning: The Baby Boomer's 2022 Guide to Maximize Your Retirement Benefits

There is a lot online content. Some of it ls misleading and some is outright incorrect. That is why I recommend the book below.Note: This is a review of four books. You may have to scroll down to the specific book you are interested in."Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security" by Laurence J Kotlikoff, Philip Moeller, and Paul SolmanIf you are a numbers person, mathematician, math teacher, engineer, scientist, accountant, or financial planner then this is probably the best book for you. Get the latest edition. I have read four books,cover to cover, on Social Security and how to get the most from it. This is and will be the last book purchased because it has done the best job at explaining what I wanted to know. No book can explain all of SS and the many options available. This answered many but not all of my questions and gave me a very good understanding to the complexity of Social Security. If I had bought this book 1st, I know I would have bought some of the other books in hopes of finding the solution I wanted and I would have been disappointed in the other books.You do not need this book or any book for that matter if:You've never been married.You've never been disabled.You are not supporting a disabled parent or child.Your spouse (deceased, divorced, or still married to you) has never paid into Social Security.You have never worked for a government agency.You have no other pension benefits owed to you.You will not marry (or remarry) after you retire.You may have already begun receiving benefits and figure it is too late to change anything - that there is no "do overs." This book explains if possible, how, when, and what you can do to undo your Social Security filing. Basically, you must have just started receiving SS payments within the last 12 months. If so, you can undo what you have done. This book explains how.If you figure, you will make an appointment with Social Security and they will answer your specific questions and concerns, then you may not know all you need to know to ask the right questions. We went to our local Social Security office and we had two phone appointments. We spent a total time of 6 hours waiting and talking. The majority was waiting. The people within Social Security do try to do their best to help you but after reading this book I understand how none of them can know everything there is to know about Social Security. None of them gave me false information even if some of what we were told was a tad misleading. I feel they try their best and, in general, are good at their job. Information from Social Security should not be a substitute for getting and reading this book.If you are not that interested in having to trudge through a book like this one. One of the authors, Laurence J Kotlikoff, has on-line software home license for sale - Maximize My Social Security. While I can not review this software, I can let you know that it is available. I have to believe this is one of the better software on the market."Social Security for Dummies, 2nd Edition", by Jonathan PetersonThis is the 1st book on Social Security that I read. It is my second choice of Social Security books. It is easy to read and contains a lot of tips. It is not as extensive as Get What's Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security. Still it is a good basic primer on Social Security. It does contain several online links to help. One of the best links is from Dummies.com.I can recommend this book for those who want more than just general information that you can find at www.ssa.gov. It will answer many question about a variety of situations. It will provide a good starting point before talking with Social Security. It does fill a need but if your situation is complex this may not meet your needs. "Social Security Income Planning: The Baby Boomer Guide to Maximize Your Retirement Benefits" by Mark J OrrThis is the third book I purchased. It did have information not found in the Dummies book. It is a well written book with more information but a bit harder for me to follow. At this, I was looking specific information. In my haste, I may have missed what I needed. While a good book, I would not recommend it."Social Security Simplified: The Complete Guide to Understanding Social Security" by ClydeBank FinanceThis was the second book I purchased. It was either free or less than $5 as an eBook. Beyond the presumptuousness of the title, it is worth a read. The simplified guide to Social Security would be similar to the simplified guide to rocket science. My recommendation is that if its free, download it. If it costs anything, save your money and purchase my 1st recommendation.

In general this is a very helpful book. (as the author notes, there are a number of good books available on the topic of SS). Other reviewers have covered the benefits (and desperate need of editing) of the book. I will focus on one chapter of the book. The author is quite proud of the chapter describing the Earlys, Waites, and Bests. This chapter illustrates the federal tax advantages that might be gained by delaying benefits as long as possible. However, the author does not point out that the value of this strategy will decline, almost to the vanishing point, over the coming years. The strategy is based on making SS as large a part of your income as possible, because the federal government only taxes up to 85% of SS benefits based on certain income limits. The problem is, those income limits were established many years ago and were deliberately not indexed. So the dollar amounts, which very few folks would have hit when established, have never been increased. Over time, almost all middle class folks who have made any preparation at all will blow right past those upper limits. Under current law, 15% of the SS benefit would still escape federal tax, so there will still be some benefit (and many states don't tax SS, so there is benefit there). So, while there will remain some modest benefit to this facet of delayed SS benefits, that chapter overstates it's likely future value. (In addition, it seems very likely that at some point, that 85% cap will be eliminated, and most middle class folks will see their entire SS check taxed as regular income (at the federal level). So, maybe a minor quibble, but worth pointing out.

As an immigrant to the US, the Social Security system confuses me. This book was a real eye-opener at explaining how it works, and what I need to be aware of in order to plan for my retirement. Orr clearly explains all the issues relating to how and when you can elect to take your retirement benefits, and what factors affect how much you will receive. It's essential to make the right choices, or you could end up losing out on tens of thousands of dollars right when you need it most.Orr sets out in detail the different strategies available. It's not exactly an easy read - after all, he's dealing with federal financial regulations, and as always, the devil is in the details. However, if you're smart enough to have figured out that you need to start thinking about your long-term finances, then you're smart enough to follow what he's saying. Or at least, if you decide to go and see a financial advisor after realizing just how complex this all is, you'll have some idea what they're talking about.Perhaps the most important thing is to understand how long you will need to draw money for. You can often elect to draw more money at an earlier, but then your benefits drop off later. That's great at first, but it could land you in real hardship when you're much older. You need to assess your life expectancy and figure out realistically how long you will need to continue drawing money. If you're married, then it's even more complicated, since you have to consider your spouse's earnings as well. Orr goes into spousal benefits, survivor benefits, tax issues, and why you might want to consider suspending your benefits.If you're concerned about how you will manage financially in your retirement - and you probably should be - then this is well worth reading.