Don’t Rely on the Social Security Administration to give you good Information

The Social Security Administration isn’t doing a good job of advising Americans on their options and how to make the best choices. That shouldn’t surprise any Retirement Watch readers, but it recently was confirmed in a study by the GAO. The government agency studied the information SSA gives to beneficiaries and potential beneficiaries and found it to be inadequate. Details are here.

“While some people understand that delaying claiming leads to higher benefits, many are unclear about the actual amount that benefits increase with claiming age,” according to the report. In 8 of the 26 meetings in which higher monthly benefits could have been achieved if the person meeting with the SSA representative had waited, the pros and cons of holding off didn’t even come up, although the SSA’s current policy instructs claims processors to address the topic.

Worse, the GAO report notes that “in both face-to-face and online application methods, we found claimants were sometimes provided information that could inadvertently influence them to claim earlier than they might have otherwise.”