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Your Guide to Social Security, Part Two
Tweet Share on Facebook December 30, 2009 Comment (1)Here is the second of three columns explaining how Social Security benefits are determined, and how they are affected by changing wage and inflation levels. I was led through this process by the Social Security Administration's chief actuary, Stephen C. Goss. The first installment explained how the agency calculates the wage base that it uses to determine each person's individual benefit.
This wage base is called the average indexed monthly earnings. The individual benefit is called your primary insurance amount (PIA). Regardless of when you elect to begin receiving Social Security benefits—as early as age 62 or as late as age 70—the money you will get each month will range from 75 percent to 132 percent of your PIA.
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Your Guide to Social Security, Part One
Tweet Share on Facebook December 29, 2009 Comment (7)Social Security is our most important retirement benefit. Never intended as a source of primary retirement income, it has become just that for most retirees. And when 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement funds took such a drubbing in the 2008-2009 stock market dive, the relative importance of Social Security became even greater.
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Don't Let Wealth Impede Good Decisions
Tweet Share on Facebook December 23, 2009 Comment (2)Scrooge McDuck used to treat his money vault as a swimming pool, diving in and out of huge mounds of coins. Numbered Swiss bank accounts would have been more effective, but not much of a sight gag for a cartoon. And, I'm betting, not nearly so satisfying on a visceral level. Nope. Not much beats wallowing in money. Ask the hedge fund guys.
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10 Important Personal Technology Products
Tweet Share on Facebook December 22, 2009 Comment (8)Whatever is under your tree or its equivalent this holiday season, odds are good it plugs into the wall, runs on batteries, or is controlled by a silicon chip. Computer technology is not only around us; it has become the foundation of how we work, communicate, and play. For older consumers, the cost of falling behind on the technology curve has moved far beyond an uneasy or bemused embarrassment. If you can't function in a digitized world, you risk being excluded from what have become mainstream social activities.
[Slide Show: 10 Great Tech Products for Seniors.]
One good result of the increasingly central role of digital devices is that their makers and marketers have had to make them intelligible to mass markets and not simply to geeks and other early adapters. A second benefit is that today's hot hardware and software products are doing things that are common—if not essential—to everyday life. Becoming "tech savvy" is more about meeting your needs than learning some arcane language or keyboard shortcuts you will never use.
[See the Biggest Tech Flops of the Decade.]
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2010 Just Might Be a Good Year to Die
Tweet Share on Facebook December 21, 2009 Comment (8)On your mark, get set, die! Just kidding! But if Congress fails to pass a new estate tax law by the end of this year, which seems likely, it means there will be no estate tax at all as 2010 begins. It's hard to imagine the super-rich agreeing to make planned exits from life's stage as the New Year unfolds. But the estate savings could be huge. And the plot twists for made-for-TV murder movies certainly could be enticing. I'm thinking Angela Lansbury and Colonel Mustard in the library.
[See Best Affordable Places to Retire.] -
Senior Communities Cope With Hard Times
Tweet Share on Facebook December 18, 2009 Comment (1)The commercial real estate industry is in a virtual free-fall. Vacancy rates are soaring in many projects even as rental rates drop. When the market hits bottom, which is widely expected to happen in 2010 or early 2011, the value of commercial real estate may settle at depression levels—40 to 50 percent below 2007 peaks, according to the "2010 Emerging Trends in Real Estate" report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute.
Against this backdrop, the news for senior housing complexes is not that so many have failed but that so few have followed in the path of Erickson Communities. A leader in continuing-care retirement communities (CCRCs), Erickson filed for bankruptcy in the fall. Still, the company's housing complexes, most of which are stable and viable, are not part of the bankruptcy, and Erickson has continued to honor its policy of refunding entrance deposits when residents die or leave a community.
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Housing Recovery Will Revive Retirement Plans
Tweet Share on Facebook December 16, 2009 Comment (3)Buy a house, pay the monthly mortgage, watch your home's value grow, and eventually sell it and fund your retirement dreams. It seemed to be the natural order of things until the bubble burst. For older homeowners, the new order of things is to either sell your home at a huge loss or stay put and hope things will get better before you're too old and frail to have any retirement dreams left. For recent homeowners, there is no dream. But there is a nightmare: Buy a house at an inflated value, pay a teaser mortgage until you can't afford it, watch your home's value fall like a rock, and then sink with that rock as you either default, renegotiate your loan, or sink further underwater each month. Renting never looked so good.
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Let the Real Healthcare Debate Begin!
Tweet Share on Facebook December 14, 2009 Comment (7)Wow. Health reform has gotten really interesting. Major changes are occurring almost daily as the Senate searches for a proposal that will get 60 votes. OK, we will drop the public option plan but we're adding Medicare for people aged 55 to 64. The plan will not add to the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office says. Yes, it will, argue experts within the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Last summer's alliances certainly seem to be ancient history. Doctors, hospitals, insurers, drug companies, and other players are getting on and off the bandwagon, as elements of their membership splinter off to take contrary positions.
[See Best Affordable Places to Retire.] -
6 Ways to Find Returns When Interest Rates Are Zero
Tweet Share on Facebook December 11, 2009 Comment (2)The Federal Reserve is still transfusing money into a weak economy, and the patient shows signs of a very slow recovery at best. Despite huge budget deficits, interest rates could remain near zero, making 2010 a challenging year to find low-risk returns on your money. Here are factors to consider as you think about how to employ your investment funds next year.
[See the 10 Strangest Mutual Funds.]
Dividends. Locking in solid dividends by investing in strong companies has become a popular way to capture good yields, as long as you understand that good yields these days are in the range of 3 to 5 percent. If you're concerned about the risk of buying individual stocks, look for dividend-focused mutual funds, but understand you'll most likely be sacrificing some return for that safety.
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Let's Stimulate a Recovery in Confidence
Tweet Share on Facebook December 9, 2009 Comment (1)The deep and lengthy recession has made what could be a lifelong impact on older Americans' views about retirement and their future well-being, according to a new survey by The Hartford Financial Services Group. "Today, on the heels of a deep recession and volatile equity markets, America's confidence is on the wane, replaced for many by worry and anxiety," the company said in releasing the findings. "Those concerns are especially prevalent for those who have not taken the time or made the effort to plan for retirement and who now doubt their financial wherewithal to retire."
[See Best Affordable Places to Retire.]
