Social Security has redesigned the statement that potential beneficiaries can access online to tell them about their future benefits. The redesign is getting positive reviews. They used to send something like this out in the mail whether you asked for it or not. My experience was that no one paid attention to the statements that used to be mailed even if they were about to file a claim for benefits. It may be a better design now but will that make a difference, especially when far fewer people are seeing it?
There's not a lot of difference that I can see. They summed Social Security earnings over decades until 2010 on the new statement, but I liked having each year's value as on the old statement. The new statement gives estimated benefits for more retirement years, but neither old nor new statement give an adequate explanation of what these are. Are they current values (as they should be), or are they the nominal values in each year? I know how to calculate benefits, but I can't get their number (although the difference isn't large), even for retirement right now (the easiest case).
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I had to log in to get the new statement, and it says you can request a duplicate Social Security card online. Then when you log in and pick that option, it says you can't.
Not everyone can but many can request a replacement card online successfully.
ReplyDeleteresearch shows that the statement increases people's knowledge about disability insurance, and raises the age at which people plan to retire. For example https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v80n4/v80n4p23.html
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