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[AChartist]

cola default not new to slaves that can read package net weight in english.

oh, the progressives are getting those 1%er's in the neighborhood now.



http://dailyreckonin...tealth-default/


This post Social Security’s Stealth Default appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

Wow, that’s brazen. They took “file and suspend” out back and shot it dead. No warning at all.

We figured this technique to maximize Social Security benefits would be safe at least until the next president took office and Social Security’s looming bankruptcy would be too big to ignore.

Instead, it wound up in the fine print of the “zombie budget” Congress and the White House agreed on last week.

So how did we get here? As we said six months ago, it started as a line item in President Obama’s 2015 budget proposal.

In its own words, the budget “proposes to eliminate aggressive Social Security claiming strategies, which allow upper-income beneficiaries to manipulate the timing of collection of Social Security benefits in order to maximize delayed retirement credits.”

Oh, those naughty “upper-income beneficiaries” and their “manipulations”!

File and suspend works — worked — like this: Say you’re about to reach Social Security’s “full retirement age” of 66 and you’re eligible for $2,000 a month in benefits. Your spouse, meanwhile, is due to collect $700 a month in benefits.

Instead of following this path, you file and suspend — forgoing your own benefits until as late as age 70 while your spouse files to collect spousal benefits. Doing so accomplishes two things…

Your spouse is eligible for half your monthly benefit — in this case, $1,000. That’s a lot more than $700
While your own benefits are suspended, you earn delayed retirement credits. Instead of collecting $2,000 a month starting at age 66, you get $2,721 starting at age 70.
We’re sure Boston College’s Alicia Munnell is pleased. “Who gains?” she wrote in a MarketWatch column about file and suspend last March. “Some obvious criteria include: 1) the individuals must be married; 2) at least one member of the couple must be healthy enough to delay claiming until 66; and 3) both spouses must have an earnings history. These facts tend to tilt the benefits toward higher-earning households.”

Well, OK. We had a rather different take on the matter last May. Using Munnell’s enumerated list, killing file and suspend punishes you if: 1) you’ve worked hard to create a strong marriage; 2) you’ve worked hard to take responsibility for your health; and 3) you’ve both fed the beast as wage slaves for the last 40-odd years.

Besides, it’s not just those manipulative “upper-income beneficiaries” who stand to lose: So do divorced women.

Many divorced women have resorted to filing for Social Security benefits based on the higher earnings of their ex-husbands… and then holding off collecting their own benefits until age 70, taking advantage of delayed retirement credits.

Kiplinger recently called it one of “the best Social Security strategies if you’re divorced.” Well, no more.

Let’s call the death of file and suspend what it really is — a stealth default on Social Security.

[salsabob]

I can't figure out which is worse - The hypocrisy of those that scaremonger that SS is going to default but scream about measures to stop that 'default?' Or, is it their utter ignorance of believing the federal government can actually default for any reason than other by political choice (see "debt ceiling") Either way, I do enjoy taking these people's money in the markets because the exact same hypocrisy/ignorance makes them easy takins.