From
Your Perspective:
Retirement catch-up for late starters
Income sources in
retirement
You’ll
probably have a number of income sources during retirement. If you
qualify for Social Security because you paid into the system for at
least ten years, or if you’re married to someone who qualifies, you’re
eligible to begin collecting reduced benefits when you turn 62. If you
wait until you reach full retirement age, which is 66 for people born
between 1943 and 1954 and then increases gradually to 67 for people born in 1960 and later, you’re
eligible for a larger benefit.
Although
Social
Security
is designed to provide a portion of your retirement income, it almost
certainly won’t be adequate to cover all of your needs. So you should
plan on having additional income sources. These might include
pensions,
retirement savings plans, such as
401(k)s,
and other personal investment and savings assets. How much income these
sources will generate will depend mainly on how much you invest and the
rate of return you achieve.
Fact or fiction
According to the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI), income
for people 65 or older comes largely from four sources: Social
Security, asset income, earnings, and pensions and retirement
plans.
For an immediate and personalized estimate of your Social Security benefits, you can use the Retirement Estimator on the Social Security Web site:
www.socialsecurity.gov/
estimator/
Because the Estimator draws on your actual Social Security earnings record, you don’t have to manually key in years of earning information to get your estimate.
