What You Need To Know About Maximizing Your Retirement Income

What You Need To Know About

Maximizing Your Retirement Income

Baby Boomers in particular want to know whether Social Security will be there for them and how much they

can expect to receive. Most Baby Boomers do not know when they should apply for their Social Security benefits and how to maximize that benefit. Most importantly, many Baby Boomers are concerned that their Social Security benefit will not be enough for them to live on during their retirement. Before strategies can be discussed, it is crucial to understand the value of Social Security and what it can mean for you. Social Security basically offers a stream of income that you cannot outlive and it includes inflation adjustments, familiarly known as COLAs. For example, if your monthly Social Security income today is $2,000 and the annual COLAs are 2.8%, in 20
years your monthly Social Security benefit will be $3,474. Besides the monthly benefit you may be entitled to based on your own work records, Social Security also offers survivor benefits. To illustrate, if a married woman receiving a monthly benefit of $2,000 dies, her surviving husband, who only had a monthly benefit of $1,200, can now step up and begin receiving his deceased wife’s $2,000 monthly benefit rather than his own.