Do you know how much money you will get from Social Security if you are injured tomorrow? How about how much you can expect to get when you retire? If you don’t know the answer to these questions, you aren’t alone. Even though the Phoenix area, and really Arizona generally, is full of people who are thinking about retirement, or who have already retired, most of the clients who come to Roeschke Law’s office seeking help with their Social Security issues don’t know this basic information. It’s time to turn this trend around. Let’s resolve to make 2016 the year we all start to keep track of our Social Security benefits online!
It is exciting that a small part of the federal government has awakened and realized we are living in the 21st century, and decided that means they should use technological advances to make their work more transparent and our lives as citizens and taxpayers a little bit easier. The Social Security Administration has developed a simple, easy to use app, called my Social Security, which allows any worker with a Social Security number who is over the age of 18 to track the benefits they have accrued.
After you have set up an account, you can log in at any time to see what type of Social Security Disability benefits you would be eligible for today if you suffered a debilitating accident or illness and were unable to work. You can also check out how much the SSA estimates you would receive on a monthly basis if you retired at various ages: 62, 66,67 (depending on your current age), or 70, based on your current payments into Social Security.
You might remember getting a paper copy of this info each year prior to 2011. In order to cut costs, the government stopped sending out these yearly paper notices, but it still sends them to you every 5 years (at ages 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60)if you haven’t signed up for a my Social Security account online.
Why does the government think it’s important for us to have this information? Two reasons: [1] it’s important to check up on this information so you can be informed as to your disability rights, properly plan for retirement, and [2] it’s equally important to take a look once a year to make sure that the SSA is properly recording your payments into Social Security. Benefits (both retirement and disability) are based on how much you have paid into the system. You want to make sure that the information they have about you is accurate so you get the proper amount paid out to you in the future. If you see an error, you can usually get it corrected, as long as it happened in the last few years or is really egregious.
According to the SSA, over 22 million people have signed up for my Social Security account. It really is that easy to do. If you have questions about how my Social Securityworks, you can check out this webpage on the Social Security Administration’s website that full of helpful information. If you aren’t tech-savvy, or you have questions that aren’t answered on the SSA’s website, please feel free to give our team of Social Security disability experts at Roeschke Law a call at (800) 975-1866. We can’t set up your my Social Security account for you, but we can help you do it, either over the phone, or at our office in Phoenix. And we can absolutely help you address any errors you find in your account.
Now that you know how easy it is to keep track of your Social Security with SSA’s my Social Security app, spread the word! Let’s make 2016 the year we all resolve to get knowledgeable about our benefits.