The One BIG Social Security Myth

http://money.msn.com/retirement/10-s...-facts-to-know

was reading the above this morning. I know some on here are starting to think about SS. There is one big myth that is maybe the biggest misstatement in every single discussion of SS that I have ever seen.

What SS calls your "Full Retirement Age (FRA)" is NOT YOUR FULL RETIREMENT AGE. It matters not one bit when you were born.........your full retirement age is 70. For everyone.

The age that SS calls your FRA has only one meaningful stipulation with it. It is the age at which you can have any amount of earned income and not have your SS benefit reduced. Before your FRA, they will reduce your SS if you make too much EARNED income. After your FRA, you can earn any amount and SS will never be reduced. It should be called your "Maximum Earnings Age" or something. But your earnings are NOT full at that year. They can get bigger.

However, that is NOT the age at which you get FULL/MAXIMUM retirement benefits. As I said, that age is 70 for everyone. 70 is the age after which your SS benefits will never again increase, so there is no point in waiting past age 70 to draw.

Another myth that is in the semantics..........is that they say you will "make more money if you wait". If you live to the actuarial age that SS has calculated for you (or longer), you will get the exact same amount of money no matter when you start drawing. You can make less per month for longer months, or more per month for fewer months. But if you multiply the amount of your monthly benefit times the # of months the table says you have left, you get the same number either way. You have X dollars to draw out IF you live to that age, period. That's how it's figured. So, you do not make more money by waiting, you just get it in fewer but higher monthly payments.

That's the lesson for today.