hello and welcome to work's going on m g a night and with me today is kristen out bruno public affairs specialist for social security thank you so much for coming to do with us today kristen that gives so much for having well social security is widely recognized as one of the most successful programs and u s history but i'd like you to tell us a little bit about the history if you will and i would be happy to social security has just celebrated our eighty second year anniversary so social security started off a nine hundred thirty five just as a retirement program where you work contribute to get something at retirement age but it was soon realized the people working in contributing to social security leaving behind spouses and children and so shortly after we added survivor's insurance and since then it just continued to evolve we have social security disability insurance so that would be for someone who's worked contributed and something's happened to prevent them from continuing to work and ultimately it's like getting a retirement early we've also had medicare health insurance across one to reach age sixty five  social security administers this program called s s i as well supplemental security income needs based program it's not actually from that pot that we as workers contribute to but social security helps administer that program as well  so social security truly is there for you from the moment you're born get your social security number and it continues to be there for you through life's journey and actually we can run the we are there day one with baby names and gifts that last a lifetime we are there as you grow protecting you and those you love and we are there as you start your next chapter we are with i love it i really think that you know i really shows that you know social security is a financial lifeline for all of us if the unexpected happens perhaps you know it's there for you and  i get questions all the time about social security and it affects people of all ages it's not just for retirees children of disabled workers get benefits children of deceased workers widows widowers about one work and contribute to social security most people see that fica tax coming out of their paycheck but they're not really sure what that is or what it means but when you contribute you're automatically earning credits in every year the amount of money that you need to get a credit changes in and twenty seventeen every time you work and earn thirteen hundred dollars you get one credit and you can earn up to four credits every year so for twenty seventeen fifty two hundred dollars gets you your four credits for the year once you've accumulated over a lifetime of work forty credits you have vested in eligible for something at retirement age used to be called forty quarters because you had to earn that amount of money each quarter of the year but now it doesn't matter when you earn i t which is important because it's become much easier for people to get vested so you can earn the fifty two hundred dollars in the summer and get your four credit and that's just guaranteeing you something at retirement age wonderful and when can you take retirement you can technically take your social security retirement as early as age sixty two however that's no one's full retirement age for retirement age is the term that we use as to when you can get your full social security benefit and the age is different for everyone it's based on the year that you were born so if you were born between one nine hundred forty three and one nine hundred fifty four your full retirement age is sixty six and then it gradually goes up every two months if you people don't realize that you can actually wait past full retirement age and we see that happening all the time because people are continuing to work and living longer healthier lives so what happens in that case is someone can get what we call delayed retirement credits and deliver time in credits go all the way up until age seventy and it's an increase on your social security retirement benefit of about eight percent per year while yes so it's a very substantial difference and i'm always asked when the best time to take your benefits and you know i sort of say no i know i don't know it depends on you do you like to work do you not like to work you know what are your finances like who depends on you are you healthy you know his longevity on your side you know those are the things that a person needs to look at but what's wonderful is that social security dr of we have a wonderful little financial planning tool and it's right on the main page it's called the retirement estimator and the retirement estimate are you answer two or three questions about yourself it pulls in your social security earnings and lets you create different scenarios so it will actually let you see how your benefit changes depending on when you decide to take it and for someone like myself that has thirty plus more years before retirement i can put in future earnings and really see how continuing to work and when i decide to take my benefit how my benefit will be affected so it's a great little tool we netflix and amazon and google in a customer satisfaction survey with over time and estimate it so we're very proud of it and what is that web site and it's social security doco ok so right on the main you'll see that retirement estimator that's great and can you work after receiving social security you can and a lot of people don't realize that if you decided to take your social security benefit before full retirement age there is a limit on how much you can work and earn so in two thousand and seventeen that figure is sixteen thousand nine hundred twenty dollars so prior to full retirement age you have to keep it close to that if you were to go over you have to pay social security back a dollar for every two that you go over so for example of someone goes over by a thousand dollars you have to pay us back one time five hundred but what's nice is that once you reach full retirement age from that month on there is no limit you can you to work full time you don't have to report it to us so you can continue to work and still collect a benefit a lot of people asked me another very common question when i'm out doing my retirement seminars and  things is will my benefit go up if i'm continuing to work but i'm already collecting and the answer to that is sort of maybe it depends on the person of course but when we're calculating how much a person is going to get we're looking at their highest thirty five years but like we just went over as far as getting vested need forty credit so about ten years to qualify so the goal is getting as close to thirty five years as possible so if you work after and it gets you closer to the thirty five will automatically use those earnings we calculate a benefit and then send you out a notice letting you know that your payments went up and we always want your highest thirty five  surprise you have it and we used to have people you know rushing into social security with their w two every year telling us to recalculate but luckily with technology we get people's earnings information from the i r s and automatically will do that and the other thing that could happen is maybe on your earnings record we have some really low years so we would bump out that low year use the higher earning year and recalculate that way and that could have a positive impact as well yeah wow i know  but i'm i'm curious we used to get statements in the mail and that's not happening yes that one or the green little love letter i call it used to come around your birthday so those statements cost the agency an astronomical amount of money not very environmentally friendly either but we used to send them out and for two years we didn't send them out at all because of budget restrictions but people love that letter so we brought it back but it was only every five years currently it's only if you're over sixty so the way that people can get that social security statement is by creating their online my social security account and this is by far the greatest tool that we have available at social security dot gov yes when you create your online account for those of us not receiving social security that's what you'll see i have gone on there and that is of our wonderful web site i highly recommend it great i'm so glad i had a good experience and people ask what the you know why should you see that statement and we want people looking at the earnings every year and making sure that everything looks accurate you don't want any surprises when it's time to file so when you're not getting it you'll see you're earning statement you'll get an e mail reminder once a year to look make sure everything looks ok but once you start receiving a benefit from social security that same online account turned into a way to do business with us update your address phone number direct deposit see your payment history get a medicare replacement card just saving yourself a trip into the office or saving you that phone call and it really is very useful i was how all that you could do on that website so ok we talked about when to power for social security but what about medicare medicare is always sixty five so we're godless of when you decide to take your social security payment whether you decide to take it earlier hold off or get it right a full retirement age medicare is always sixty five so when a person is not working and not getting health insurance from their employer so you're retired and you're not getting health insurance from a spouse who's who's employed three months before sixty five you go to social security dock of new value medicare application online in ten minutes and you're done  but for some people like i said a lot of people working you know well into past full retirement age so if someone is working and still getting health insurance from their employer they do not have to file for medicare at sixty five you don't have to notify us that you're not filing either you can just cruise through sixty five is long as you're still actively employed and getting health insurance from your employer you can hold off on medicare and tell you retire and that's perfectly fine  would just need a notice from your human resources verifying they've been employed and don't have to worry about a surcharge or a penalty or anything like that is long as you do it within eight months of retirement great and social security is more than just retirement income what other programs do social security do and you know yeah we have the majority of people getting a benefit are retirees but we have social security disability insurance and that can be for anyone who has been contributing the difference between social security disability and retirement is that for retirement once you're vested you're going to get something and every time an age for social security disability you need to have actually been contributing to social security five out of the last ten years leading up to the date that you became disabled and so there need to have been currently working under it to get a to get that know with social security disability that application can be filed on line as well and it's more time consuming we ask about doctors hospitals medications that a person takes and things like that but what's wonderful about it that social security disability online allows you to take your time make sure you tell us what we need to know you know we found that a person may be coming into our very busy office and meeting with some of them never met before and talking about those personal type things they were leaving out things so we've really found the social security doc i've been having that disability application online has been wonderful in getting people approved faster and we also have an  e as far as helping people with disabilities get their income faster and it's called compassionate allowances and compassionate allowances there's a large list of conditions that if you put on social security's disability application that you've been diagnosed with one of those conditions it goes to a separate unit and can get it turned around as fast as ten days or out and get those people approved so it's as simple as just verifying that the person has a condition and that  continues to grow it's amazing that it is wonderful you know and we have widow and widowers benefits of course children of deceased workers can get a benefit up until eighteen or nineteen if they're still in high school and every time we have someone collecting  benefit disability we ask about minor children but we also ask about adult children there are possibly disabled so that's another disability program that we have so will ask if you have an adult child who is diagnosed with a disability before they reach the age of twenty two if that's the case your dull child could collect a benefit from your social security that could go on for the rest of their lives provided they remain unmarried so it's a pretty  really is a financial lifeline it's not just a protection for us but it's a protection for our children for our spouses and for a family that's grabbed us so what do you do if you've lost your social security card and you need to get it replaced how do you do that you what's wonderful brand new to benefit you sets is you can actually get a replacement social security card on line used to have to always come in with documentation but  now you can go to social security dot gov and request that replacement but i always like to tell people is that if nobody's asking you for that card as long as you have that number memorized you don't have to rush into  social security office or go online and get the replacement with technology employers and the d m v and these organizations they're very frequently asked for the actual card they have services on our website where they can register to verify that the information you told them is correct it's called our business services online so we always say that if you don't need it don't get it it's not a document you know because knowing the number is the most important thing and having that card don't keep it in your wallet make sure it's kept in a locked box because it really is it opens the door to problems if you lose it and we always say to keep it safe don't keep it in your wallet and really if you're not being asked for  value one of the sort of associate i think i assume it's associated with you is the shine counselor right and i do wonderful all they're wonderful and they've been so helpful in years and we team up with shine servicing the health insurance needs of everyone is what they stand for and i think their phone number is one eight hundred age info and actually shines a state program where social security is federal so i value them so much because social security as far as medicare we process the applications can tell you how to get a replacement card when to apply but that's where it ends for us and we have these wonderful free service in massachusetts every team up and they can tell you the ins and outs about getting a supplement and what admissions that you have and you know the enrollment for medicare part d is coming up so in november and this is the time where people might need to change their prescription plan and you can go to your senior mention is that social security doc of has not only the medicare application which i read talked about social security disability but you can file for retirement online in fifteen minutes you can file for spousal benefit online as well and it's of course the most convenient way to apply but right now we see in this country ten thousand people a day turned sixty five so that they the social security offices are busy is a big understatement so without our online services we wouldn't be able to provide good customer service so we're so thankful for how far the website has come but when you submit your applications on line it's wonderful because you get that immediate  done and it's received by a social security employee we were view it within five days and get paid and we're not closing our doors they'll make an appointment to see one of us or you can even make an appointment  one of our reps will call you and do the application over the phone and that phone number is one eight hundred seventy seven two one two one three that's our general phone line to make appointments and things like that so we're not closing our doors you can still see one of us but to keep in mind we're so busy or private may be out two months and when you do your application on line like i said you're you're done you have that immediate receipt that you've taken care of a taking care of it and another common question is how long before you want your payments to start can you file your application in the end so for retirement and actually submit it up to four months in advance before you actually want your payments to start so if you're like me and you like to get that stuff out of the way so you don't have to think about this anymore you can just do it right online and you can have an automatic deposit to your bank account you can have all these really convenient things that are available and direct deposit actually mandatory now because if you didn't know yeah so it's the you know before they even made it i think ninety percent of our clientele were already getting that direct deposit but it is mandatory it's safer you know with those paper checks you know you endorse it and it was a way in the when there's somebody cashes  you know not much we can do and that's why direct deposit is certainly the best bet and the wonderful thing with this website is that if you change banks or if you change your address or anything you can change the information right there right there right and you know the social security our hours are monday tuesday thursday and friday from nine to four on wednesdays we close at noon because that's our time we closed to the public at noon so that we can process all the work but we're so busy and to have to come in without an appointment and take a number to change your address when you do you know that's why it's great to have the  another feature that i really want to mention about the my social security account a lot of people often need a benefit verification which is a letter that just says how much they get from us per month that's one of the biggest workloads that we have  a city office sees between eight hundred nine thousand people week come in just for that letter yeah and so my social security account you can print the letter yeah you can stave it or you can even just request that one get sent home right from the account so it's really wonderful because you don't want to sit there and we hit home for that letter so my social security and those services are just going to continue to grow a final note about that we've actually found for people that are leery about doing things on line the my social security account is we found protection to your identity to create it and claim it and protect your information with a password so that no one will do it for you exactly so in the five years we've had this we've had zero instances of fraud or hacking because we do use the best in corruption technology available so for anybody who's nervous and you can add extra security  there as well wow that's great yeah i i think we've covered everything have we i believe so i mean i could go all day believe me but  like to add or are sure my position in the agency as a public affairs specialist is outreach i do a lot of time and seminars i'll visit organizations i'm visiting the belmont senior center  the so if there's anyone that's interested in having a representative from social security come out and speak to your organization whether it be a retirement seminar an organization that works with people with disabilities and want to know more about that you can go to social security doc gov and request a speaker or you can just call your local office of the one eight hundred number and myself or one of my colleagues would be happy to come out would you give that one eight hundred number again absolutely one hundred seven seven t one two one three great thank you so much for having me well you're very welcome i'm so grateful that you can today that there was a lot of information and it's it was great to have you join us also great to 're there day one with baby names and a gift that lasts a lifetime we are there as you grow protecting you and those you love we are there when you get your first job helping you to save for the future we are there when you marry your sweetheart to help secure your new life together we are there if the unexpected happens to help you see life from a new perspective we are there when you start share next chapter to make sure you get off to a great start and we are there when you lose your soul mate to help make sure you will be all right we are with you through life journey social security securing today and tomorrow get to know us and see what you can do online at social security