Let’s say you never get around to saving for retirement. You don’t work for a company that offers a traditional pension (which is no guarantee anymore), so the best you can hope for is a social security check. How bad would that be? The answer, based on Social Security as we know it now, is: It depends. If you didn’t earn much before you retired and you’re married, your lifestyle might not take a huge nosedive. Or it may be really, really, really tight.
A third of people age 65 or over rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their incomes, the Social Security Administration says. For about one out of five people in that age group, or 22%, Social Security checks are the sole source of income. The “replacement rate”—how much of a worker’s income is replaced by Social Security—depends on how Read the rest of this entry »
