Hi Larry,
I am 66 and my wife is 62. We plan to work part-time until I am 68 and my wife is 64 for a total yearly income of $55,000. I have been the larger earner. We are both in good health and are planning our finances with the hope of living past 90. We have used your Maxifi program and found it helpful for our planning. Based on your program we were both going to wait until age 70 to file for social security. I am wondering, however, given the present financial state of social security and the talks of reducing benefits in the future, would it be wise for her to start collecting now and for me to file restricted spousal benefit and then collect mine at age 70. Do you have any thoughts on the possibility of benefits being reduced and how this would affect planning today?
Thank you

Hi,

We do not recommend altering your benefit claiming strategy based on concerns about the future financing of the Social Security program. Social Security has been in existence for more than 80 years now, and Congress has always managed to fund the program sufficiently to allow all benefits to be paid as promised. There is no reason to think that will change in the foreseeable future, so we would recommend following the guidance you received from using our software.

Best, Jerry