Avoiding Costly Mistakes with Social Security

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While we focus on the non-financial aspects of retirement here, your money clearly matters. With a new year around the corner we check back in with economist Larry Kotlikoff, author of Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money,Less Risk and a Better Life, for his views on what may lie ahead, common mistakes to avoid with Social Security, how you can Maximize (Your) Social Security, why Roth IRA conversions make sense for many people and his retirement planning software MaxiFi.

Larry Kotlikoff joins us from Rhode Island.

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Bio

Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a William Fairfield Warren Professor at Boston University, a Professor of Economics at Boston University, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, President of Economic Security Planning, Inc., a company specializing in financial planning software, a Research Associate of the Gaidar Institute, and a Research Fellow of the Goodman Institute. Kotlikoff is also a New York Times Best Selling author. The Economist Magazine ranked Kotlikoff one of the world’s 25 most influential economists.

Professor Kotlikoff received his B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1977. From 1977 through 1983, Kotlikoff served on the faculties of economics of the University of California, Los Angeles and Yale University. In 1981-82 Professor Kotlikoff was a Senior Economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Professor Kotlikoff’s writings and research address personal finance, inequality, taxation, Social Security, climate change, investing, healthcare, deficits, and insurance.

Professor Kotlikoff is author or co-author of 20 books, hundreds of professional journal articles, and a multitude of op eds and blogs. His most recent books are Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money,Less Risk and a Better Life, You’re Hired, Get What’s Yours – the Revised Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security (a NY Times Best Seller co-authored with Philip Moeller and Paul Solman), The Clash of Generations (co-authored with Scott Burns), The Economic Consequences of the Vickers Commission, Jimmy Stewart Is Dead, Spend ‘Til the End, (co-authored with Scott Burns), Generational Policy (MIT Press), The Healthcare Fix, and The Coming Generational Storm (co-authored with Scott Burns). Kotlikoff’s columns have appeared in The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Hill, The Financial Times, The Times of London, Forbes, CBNC, Bloomberg, PBS NewsHour, The Dallas News, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Seattle Times, Vox, Fortune, Seeking Alpha, Yahoo.com, VoxEU, Huffington Post, and other leading media.

Kotlikoff has served as a consultant to the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Harvard Institute for International Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Swedish Ministry of Finance, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Government of Russia, the Government of Ukraine, the Government of Bolivia, the Government of Bulgaria, the Treasury of New Zealand, the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Labor, the Joint Committee on Taxation, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, The American Council of Life Insurance, Merrill Lynch, Fidelity Investments, AT&T, AON Corp., and other major U.S. corporations. Kotlikoff has provided expert testimony on numerous occasions to committees of Congress including the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Budget Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee.  Kotlikoff’s company markets economics-based financial planning software, including maxifiplanner.com, maximizemysocialssecurity.com, and analyzemydivorcesettlement.com.

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For More on Laurence J. Kotlikoff

MaxiFi financial planning software

Maximize My Social Security,

Money Magic: An Economist’s Secrets to More Money,Less Risk, and a Better Life

Website: Kotlikoff.net

Follow on Twitter @Kotlikoff

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Retirement Savings Time Bomb – Ed Slott

An Economist’s Take on Retirement Planning – Larry Kotlikoff

The Key Decisions for Retirement Success – Wade Pfau

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About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

There are many podcasts on retirement, often hosted by financial advisors with financial motives, that cover the money side of the street. This podcast is different. You’ll get smarter about the investment decisions you’ll make about the most important asset you’ll have in retirement: your time.

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Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career and create their version of The Multipurpose Retirement.™ He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking. Today, in addition to his work with clients, Joe hosts The Retirement Wisdom Podcast, which thanks to his guests and loyal listeners, ranks in the top 1 % globally in popularity by Listen Notes, with over 1.5 million downloads. Business Insider has recognized Joe as one of 23 innovative coaches who are making a difference. He’s the author of Win the Retirement Game: How to Outsmart the 9 Forces Trying to Steal Your Joy.

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Wise Quotes

On Social Security Mistakes

“Well, almost everybody’s taking Social Security as soon as they can, or as soon as soon as they retire. And so we’re talking about probably 90% of people taking it before 65 or at 65. And that’s for almost everybody way too early. So we have, and when we’re talking about the typical American household leaving $182,000 on the table by taking the wrong benefits at the wrong time. And so going too early, not knowing about all the benefits that they have available, not running optimization software. I have a software company that has a $49 tool, which is called Maximize My Social Security, which for 49 bucks, you can figure out what to do in terms of raising your lifetime benefits. And it can be, for some people, we’ve raised their benefits with our tool, just that alone by $600,000. If you talk about a high earning couple, both of whom want to take benefits, retire at 62 and take benefits at 62. Well, rather than 70, when their benefit would start 76% higher adjusted for inflation. This is like the dumbest thing in the world. If you’re cashflow constrained, you should borrow steal or beg from your brother to give you money to get by to let, and then pay them back when you get this much higher benefit because it’s fantastic return to patients. And a lot of people are doing this because they’re being focused. by the financial industry by Wall Street on life expectancy. Hey, your life expectancy is only this, you better take your money because if you don’t take it, you’re going to lose it. So if you don’t take your Social Security at 62 and you die at 63, where are you going to be? You’re going to be in heaven, right? And you’re not going to need any money. So the idea that you’re going to lose it, well, you’re not going to lose it, okay? What you’re really going to lose is the insurance protection. When you’re 98 and you’ve lived that long and you’ve had to pay for yourself that whole way, not having a 76% higher number every month coming in to your bank account. So Social Security is longevity insurance. And if social security, which is our largest insurance company in the world, would take off all these life expectancy calculators on its website and it’s like having a health. It’s like having a homeowners insurance company putting onto their website a calculator that says what your expected loss from a fire is. And they’ll show everybody that it’s not that big and not that many fires. So therefore don’t buy full coverage. Let your house burn down and because it’s not going to happen on that often. Yeah, but you only have one house, right? You only have one life. You’re not going to die on time. Nobody dies on time. You can’t count on dying on time. So you have and then you also have people with this psychology that if they think about living to 100, they’re going to die the next morning, if they’re going to jinx themselves. Well, OK, but they do think about their house burning down and they ensure against it, right? It doesn’t it doesn’t lead to their house burning down, but and that’s money well lost if your house doesn’t burn down, right having paid that premium.”

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on The Retirement Wisdom Podcast are solely those of the guests and do not reflect the opinion of the host or Retirement Wisdom, LLC. The Retirement Wisdom Podcast primarily covers the non-financial aspects of retirement. From time to time we may invite guests who discuss other aspects of retirement planning, solely for educational purposes. Listeners are advised to consult qualified financial and/or medical professionals on those matters.