Have You Gotten Your Social Security Statement For 2024?

Brookswood said:
I got mine last week. Nothing shocking. More importantly I found a Part D prescription plan that should save me a good $40 a month.
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And that's a good thing. I won't be changing plans because I'm under the State Health Benefits Plan for retirees but they do give me $46 a month toward my Medicare part D payments.
Teacher Terry said:
Due to WEP my SS is tiny so most of the raise goes for the higher part B payment.
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That's a shame Terry!
 
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I have Medicare with an MA plan through my State Retirement System which narrows my field of options but I'm never quite certain what the best path is even so.

I'm delaying taking SS, being fortunate enough to be able to do so, but when the time comes I expect a big tax bite. Especially with the income tax changes expiring before long.
 
WEP and it’s sister GPO cause a lot of confusion.

It’s a rule put in place to keep people who worked, earned a pension but were excused from paying into SS from getting excess benefits compared to those of us who have paid SS on our earnings for 30 years of more.

Who was excussed from paying into SS? The most popular reasons are working for a non profit, religious reasons, and working for a government agency that decided not top participate in the SS system. Most people who have not paid into SS while working are employees of government agencies.

If a person paid into SS for at least 30 years, then regardless of any years of work not paying into SS, they get the full benefit. If a person worked and paid into SS for less than 30 years, the SS payments gets reduced proportionally. If a persons did not pay into SS and did not also earn a pension, WEP does not apply to them.

IMO, The SS exemption should be done away with. It causes a lot of needless confusion.

Here’s a more thorough explanation, than I can offer.

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This guy presents a lot of news and often does a lot of "chalktalks" taking you through different hypothetical scenarios. I found a lot of it useful but I haven't watched in a while because he has to repeat stuff for newer viewers.


If his style grates on you there are lots of others doing similar things.
 
Yes, I got an email a few weeks ago and logged into the SS website and had a message the had a link to the new amount. 66% of my increase is already going to be swallowed up by HOA increase + Medicare part D increase. I'm not sure but I think my part B supplement does its increase at the anniversary of when I started it (so not for a few months yet), tho probably that will wipe out any remaining dollars of the COLA.
 
dilettante said:
I keep planning to move all of my accounts, user names, passwords, etc. to the little notebook I bought for this 3 years ago, but nope. So I went through my little papers for my SSA account info, tried to log in, and nope! "Sorry. Try again stupid, our site is not up at night." Oh well! :ROFLMAO:
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I've tried to access the portal at night too. It's a shame it's down during the late hours. I used to keep my passwords in a little notebook too, but then I thought...what if someone breaks in, takes my computer and notebook, or they could just take the notebook. :unsure: Now I keep my coded passwords in a Google document. Even if someone hacked that, they'd never figure out the passwords.
 
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That's a good thought.

What I planned with the pocket notebook was to place it on a short list of things to grab and stuff into my "bog out bag" in the case of a fire, bad flood, serious close tornado warning, alien invasion, or zombie attack. :ROFLMAO:

But keeping that "in the cloud" probably works even better.

Of course I still have some Savings Bonds, Property Title, some business papers, meds, some cash, and of course my most precious family photos to grab as I bail out.
 
dilettante said:
That's a good thought.

What I planned with the pocket notebook was to place it on a short list of things to grab and stuff into my "bog out bag" in the case of a fire, bad flood, serious close tornado warning, alien invasion, or zombie attack. :ROFLMAO:

But keeping that "in the cloud" probably works even better.

Of course I still have some Savings Bonds, Property Title, some business papers, meds, some cash, and of course my most precious family photos to grab as I bail out.
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May I suggest that you start making digital copies of those precious photos? They can then be stored in a photo program (I just use Google) and on an external hard drive and/or flash drive. My newest SSD drive is about the size of a credit card.
 
Brookswood said:
WEP and it’s sister GPO cause a lot of confusion.

It’s a rule put in place to keep people who worked, earned a pension but were excused from paying into SS from getting excess benefits compared to those of us who have paid SS on our earnings for 30 years of more.

Who was excussed from paying into SS? The most popular reasons are working for a non profit, religious reasons, and working for a government agency that decided not top participate in the SS system. Most people who have not paid into SS while working are employees of government agencies.

If a person paid into SS for at least 30 years, then regardless of any years of work not paying into SS, they get the full benefit. If a person worked and paid into SS for less than 30 years, the SS payments gets reduced proportionally. If a persons did not pay into SS and did not also earn a pension, WEP does not apply to them.

IMO, The SS exemption should be done away with. It causes a lot of needless confusion.

Here’s a more thorough explanation, than I can offer.

Enable Cookies | USAA | USAA
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The rules are more complicated than you know. For your SS to not be reduced you need 30 years of work paying into SS and earning what they consider a significant yearly wage. The years you don’t meet this criteria don’t count.

WEP is actually fair for people that have spent 30 years working for a government that doesn’t pay into SS. For people like me that spent 15 years with government and 20 in SS jobs it really hurts. They didn’t account for this scenario when making the rules.
 
Teacher Terry said:
The rules are more complicated than you know. For your SS to not be reduced you need 30 years of work paying into SS and earning what they consider a significant yearly wage. The years you don’t meet this criteria don’t count.

WEP is actually fair for people that have spent 30 years working for a government that doesn’t pay into SS. For people like me that spent 15 years with government and 20 in SS jobs it really hurts. They didn’t account for this scenario when making the rules.
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We will have to agree to disagree. IMO, 15 years of work without having to pay a penny of the SS tax is a big plus. That money can be invested for the long term and produce a sizable income to a retired person.

As I said, it would be best to do away with the SS exemption entirely and thus avoid this controversy. At the very least people who don’t pay into to SS should get a warning letter every year saying something like “You better save and invest the money you are not paying into SS since your benefit will be getting a significant haircut when you retire.“
 
Brookswood said:
We will have to agree to disagree. IMO, 15 years of work without having to pay a penny of the SS tax is a big plus. That money can be invested for the long term and produce a sizable income to a retired person.

As I said, it would be best to do away with the SS exemption entirely and thus avoid this controversy. At the very least people who don’t pay into to SS should get a warning letter every year saying something like “You better save and invest the money you are not paying into SS since your benefit will be getting a significant haircut when you retire.“
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What you don’t seem to understand is that some of the years I paid into SS don’t count because my wages weren’t high enough. That’s one of the things that isn’t fair.

After I was working for the state for a month I realized when I received my first paycheck that there was no SS deduction. I then educated myself on WEP. I had already quit another state job and had moved across the country. I might have made different choices if they had initially told me when being interviewed that they didn’t pay into SS.

Through the years employees would come that were in their 50’s and had always paid into SS and when I explained how WEP would effect them many only stayed a year or two and left before being vested. I know all the WEP rules but your links may be beneficial to others.
 
Brookswood said:
We will have to agree to disagree. IMO, 15 years of work without having to pay a penny of the SS tax is a big plus. That money can be invested for the long term and produce a sizable income to a retired person.

As I said, it would be best to do away with the SS exemption entirely and thus avoid this controversy. At the very least people who don’t pay into to SS should get a warning letter every year saying something like “You better save and invest the money you are not paying into SS since your benefit will be getting a significant haircut when you retire.“
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Not everyone is savvy at investing or even good at saving. If so, there wouldn't be so many people who don't even have a $10,000 emergency fund and are so ill (un)prepared for retirement. I like the warning letter idea though. :)
 

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