Retirement Reform Blog

As if the Democrats' proposed health care bill is not enough to send a person to the urgent care clinic, there is a lesser-known move that has garnered attention among those concerned about the growing entitlement burden: the House voted this week to approve a package which would eliminate the "Medicare trigger."

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A recent New York Times article discusses whether the best time to retire is at 62 (early retirement) or at 70.  Its conclusion: hold out as long as you can.  This must, however, be taken with a grain of salt.  Getting the timing of retirement right depends on several factors, and no two families are exactly alike.

For a single person, probably the most important question is how long do you plan to live?  If you are "in poor health and probably won't live past 78," you might want to take benefits at early retirement, says the Times.  Ideally, if you expect to live a long time and can work past retirement, then 70 is the best time to take benefits.  

If long life is the expectation, but you can't work till 70, then 66 seems to be the magic number.  This option is best even if a retiree has to use retirement savings to make it to 66 to file for Social Security benefits.  That's because the increase in benefits gained by retiring at 66 instead of 62, eventually makes up for the savings used to make it to 66.  Waiting any longer than 66, seems to exhaust savings too much to make up for higher Social Security benefits.

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