Posts filed under: social security

Wednesday, November 12, 2014 | Joe Alfonso, GoLocalPDX Contributor Sociologists have a name for those who divorce after age 50—“gray divorcees”—and their numbers are on the rise in the U.S. In fact, more Americans in this age group now are...

Wednesday, November 05, 2014 | Joe Alfonso, GoLocalPDX Contributor I received lots of good reader questions related to my recent article discussing the file and suspend strategy for maximizing Social Security benefits. Here are a few, with my answers....

Wednesday, October 22, 2014 | Joe Alfonso, GoLocalPDX Contributor Many of us have heard about the “file and suspend” strategy used to maximize Social Security benefits for married couples. In this strategy, at full retirement age (FRA) (age 66 if...

Wednesday, September 24, 2014 | Joe Alfonso, GoLocalPDX Contributor In a previous article, we looked at the general rules governing Social Security spousal benefits. As with all things related to Social Security, it is important to see how the rules...

Wednesday, August 27, 2014 | Joe Alfonso, Personal Finance Expert, GoLocalPDX If you’re relying on the Social Security system to get you through retirement, you might have been confused by the annual report released recently by the system’s Board of...

No one ever said you could live like royalty on Social Security. The program was always intended to provide a foundation for retirement but not to completely replace one’s working income. Having said that, it is wrong to ignore the...

In a recent article, The Social Security “Reset”, I talked about how to partially undo the benefit reduction that results from taking early Social Security retirement benefits. I pointed out that the rules allow a recipient to suspend retirement benefits...

(Note: Social Security benefits are gender-neutral, but in this article I will refer to the wife as the recipient since statistically this is typically the case.) Sociologists have a name for folks who divorce after age 50—“gray divorcees”—and their numbers...

April 19, 2014|Joe Alfonso, Guest blogger, The Christian Science Monitor Retirees who begin collecting Social Security before their full retirement age can take a significant cut to their benefits — but there may be a way to “reset” that process...

March 6, 2014|Cliff Newell, The Lake Oswego Review Baby boomers urged to find best way to receive benefits The boom is on when it comes to people signing up for Social Security. Many baby boomers have already retired and many...