Laurence Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University who has been answering questions and writing columns about Social Security each week for the past two years on PBS NEWSHOUR’s website. OpenRetirement has asked Professor Kotlikoff to post a Q&A each day from those columns. He has also developed software, called Maximize My Social Security, to help retirees secure the highest lifetime Social Security benefits. You can find the software here: www.maximizemysocialsecurity.com
Question: My husband died in 1999 at the age of 57. I am 63 and am planning to retire at the end of this year. I had planned on taking my husband’s benefit (I’m assuming a widows benefit?) when I retire, then changing over to my retirement benefit when I turned 70. I have just learned about the “deemed” benefit and now question whether this is what I want to do. I had asked at my Social Security office if this was doable and they said “yes,” but after more research, I think I would be locked into a lower benefit for life. Now I don’t know what is best. Can you advise?
Answer: Deeming doesn’t arise in the case of someone trying to collect a widow(er)s or divorced widow(er)s benefit. You can collect your widows benefit starting now and, as you plan, wait until 70 to take your highest possible retirement benefit. Or you can take your reduced retirement benefit now and start your widows benefit at full retirement age, when it will start at its largest value. What’s best can be calculated correctly in a half-second by a first-rate commercial software benefit maximization tool, which knows more about Social Security than many, if not most, of the folks at Social Security, who, while well meaning, are very poorly trained to understand a system that is, I believe, more complex than our federal income tax in its entirety.
__________________
When it comes to personal finance, economics and our software care about one thing—your living standard. All questions in personal finance boil down to your living standard. Your decision about when and how to take Social Security can affect your living standard throughout your retirement.
My company’s software, Maximize My Social Security, can help.
I am a professor of economics and I’ve spent a good part of my academic career studying personal financial behavior. Here’s why my colleagues and I developed Maximize My Social Security. Deciding, on your own, which Social Security benefits to take and in which month to take them is incredibly difficult. Most households face millions of options. You can easily lose tens of thousands of dollars making the wrong choices.
