The ins and outs of Social Security

(This show originally aired on April 27, 2016)

If you won the lottery and were offered the choice between lots of smaller immediate payments vs. much bigger payouts starting in three, four or five years which would you chose?

That’s the decision that most federal workers (everybody under the FERS retirement system) will face as they plan for retirement. Do they take Social Security benefits as soon as they are eligible, or do they wait and let those benefits increase about 8 percent a year, each year?  It’s a tough call, at least for some people.

So what do you do? And what about the deadline (this Friday, April 29) for certain married couples to defer one spouse’s Social Security benefit while allowing the other to collect as early as age 62?

All of the above will be on the agenda for benefits expert Tammy Flanagan.  She’s going to talk about the ins-and-outs of Social Security for active and retired feds on this week’s Your Turn show.

She’ll also deal with the different ages when people become eligible for full benefits, the so-called Full Retirement Age. For people born between 1943 and 1954 that FRA is 66. For those born in 1957, it is 66 years and 6 months and for those born in 1960 and later it is 67. So how does that work? And why the ladder approach to benefits.

Listen to the show, which will be archived later today so you can listen again, or refer it to a friend. Also, join in the webinar Tammy will be doing Thursday (10 a.m.) for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees. The subject is claiming Social Security and your own personal retirement timeline. NARFE members can log in at www.narfe.org.

That’s on Your Turn, 10 a.m. EDT at Federal News Radio or, in the DC area, on 1500 AM.  You can also dial 712-432-5393 during the show to listen live from any phone.

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