Larry Kotlikoff, who appears on PBS's Newshour program, says that you can't trust the online advice you get from Social Security. Since the online advice he's referring to is nearly incomprehensible to the average person and what Kotlikoff thinks should be added to the online advice would make it even more incomprehensible, I don't know that this is going to matter much. What it does point out is that, contrary to what most people think, Social Security is complicated.
For a single person, I think Social Security (the old age part) is fairly simple. For spouses, it's evidently more complicated, and I haven't really looked into it much. I don't understand Larry's explanation at all (but Social Security's website has been changed). Anyway, isn't Larry's specialty figuring out how to use the complexities to game the system? Is it really dangerous to trust the website, or do you just pass up some extra money you could get knowing the details?
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