Increase FRA or means testing? It will be there, I hope. I think it provides an important safety net for a lot of people.
Worst case overall (IMO), right now the current taxes being collected will cover about 70 percent of the promised benefits.
As @dstark will tell you, it will take only some minor tweaks to fix it. 
The disability side is in far worse shape. As is Medicare.
The Medicare surtax took effect in 2013. The surtax on Net Investment Income also took effect in 2013.
Frankly, though Iâm never happy to pay more in marginal taxes on my last $ of income, I would rather do that than see the safety net fray even further for those truly in need. This is not a political statement, just my position. There are far worse distortions in the Tax Code that favor corporate interests.
For those of you who are not familiar with the site, Iâd like to recommend Mke Piperâs http://www.obliviousinvestor.com/. I am on his mailing list, and I especially enjoy his Friday wrap ups of various investing/retirement-related blog posts. I have purchased some of his books, and I donât mind his âadvertisingâ them on his site.
@mcat2â
Not to add unnecessarily to your reading list, here is a white paper put out by Merrill Lynch in Winter 2013 to âwealth managementâ clients about the effects of delaying SS. Itâs a bit long, but good reading as it takes you through some figures and illustrations without scrambling your brains.
https://www.ml.com/publish/content/application/pdf/GWMOL/MLWM_RO-Claiming-Social-Security.pdf
Or you could use the software that @IxnayBob has been pleased with:
Thanks for all the good inputs regarding when to start to collect SS. Something to think about in this weekend (and before the actual retirement, or before starting to collect it.) Much appreciated.
sax, The size of our nest egg is within the range you mentioned. If we had doubled the anount, we would not be so paranoid. But this would happen only when the conpany will allow me to work much longer, which is not very likely. But this is not under my control. I actually tried my best to delay my retirement date for about 5 years already. Cross my fingers!
I am looking at Ixnayâs link and
http://www.obliviousinvestor.com/which-interest-rates-affect-bond-prices/
We have to have a muni chart⊠
http://learnbonds.com/municipal-bond-yields/
For those who are invested in international funds, has the strength of the dollar hurt returns? Are the funds hedging for currency risk?
In my Vanguard International Equity funds, they do hedge for currency risk. I have no idea whether theyâre fully or partially hedged. Years ago, I actually felt that it was unfortunate and complained, in that I wanted exposure to currency risk, but of course Iâm hushing my noise lately 
Interesting tidbit from @AttorneyMotherââs doc is that, for all the talk about delaying taking SS to get a higher benefit, only 3% wait until they are 67-70, and 43% start collecting as soon as they are eligible at age 62.
IxnayBob, 
I got distracted. I hope this link is appropriate to the discussion.
@IxnayBobâ
I checked my records. I dutifully started investing approx 20% of our new equity monies in Vanguardâs European Stock Index Fund in 1998 (to diversify globally). I kept it up through Oct 2007. Then came 2008-2010 with the global financial crisis and Euro crises. I got tired of seeing the fundâs abysmal performance and decided that (for me) itâs really like a sector fund. Following all the financial news made me crazy and I was busy working and raising my D. So I stopped adding and stayed within domestic indices. In the European fund, I didnât do anything except to reinvest distributions. In 2014, I decided to close out and deploy elsewhere and, according to my 1099-B, I made a whopping single-digit % total return, before inflation.
I think that Iâll look domestically for sector funds if I want to go outside of my comfort zone. I know that the Bogleheads recommend International exposure, but I canât say that my experience has borne that out and I was in it for 16 years.
Whatâs your general experience been?
@notrichenoughâ
Itâs just a guess, of course, but I imagine that most people do not project that their life expectancy is that long, perhaps fearing they are tempting fate. And, the paper does point out that most people need the money for immediate needs. Also, it seems counter-intuitive to spend down oneâs funds first for the expectation of a larger SS payout years later, even if statistical analysis shows that it is the better financial decision. Also, people may feel like it almost too much uncertainty to trust the SSA if there is so much media about âSS running out of money.â Most donât stop to analyze carefully or are inadequately-informed.
âDutifullyâ is the right word for my international exposure. I bought it because I was âsupposed to.â My results have been mediocre at best. I sold the losing lots to harvest the losses, and what remains sits there. Itâs the opposite of the Healthcare Fund, which has done phenomenally well, but philosophically Iâm not in line with (ie, buy total markets, not sectors).
My wife and I both worked for companies which were Euro-based, so we had plenty of exposure to Europe already. Some of my wifeâs deferred comp vested in March â the dollar equivalent was much lower than when the stock and cash (in Euros) were awarded, but itâs better than a sharp stick in the eye.
Iâm not simplifying my taxable, but all new investments are pretty simple: PRIMECAP to the extent we are allowed ($25k/each/year; I know, I know, itâs an active fund but it does well), $10k/year/each I-bonds, maybe some EE bonds if Iâm in the mood, and the rest split evenly between equities and bonds (tax-free in taxable, Total Bond Market in tax-advantaged). Almost as self-driving as my Tesla will be
I saw that news item about the Tesla. Electric AND self-driving.
@AttorneyMotherâ : I wonder how many people these days are voluntarily retired at 62, and how many just canât find jobs that pay anything.
If youâve been out of work for a few years and are scraping by on savings, getting that regular payment at 62 looks pretty good. A bigger payment 8 years down the road doesnât put a roof over your head and food on the table todayâŠ
This article suggests that reading Kotlikoffâs book may be all that FAs are going to do before they advise people about claiming SS. So, perhaps itâs a good idea to get a jump start on that and read the book concomitantly.
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2015/03/09/kotlikoff-social-securitys-rules-ripping-off-recip?page_all=1
@notrichenoughâ
You would not get an argument from me about your point. (The legal profession has been hit particularly hard among late-career layoffs and older workers do not regain employment easily even in the best of times.) But what I find helpful about the analysis is that IS counter-intuitive and therefore useful in that regard.
Now, if life expectancy is the big concern, I myself would say grab what you can as early as you can because tomorrow is not guaranteed. But thatâs another issue as well.
Weâve heard the encouragements about delaying SS. We wonât decide til retirement gets closer. (I canât tell you the date because both our jobs get iffy at times). We do know the earlier years will have the most travel and probably some pre-65 medical costs. So it is tempting to dip into SS earlier.
âFrankly, though Iâm never happy to pay more in marginal taxes on my last $ of income, I would rather do that than see the safety net fray even further for those truly in need. This is not a political statement, just my position. There are far worse distortions in the Tax Code that favor corporate interests.â
I think most people would be fine with that, if they felt the money was really going towards that purpose. Wonder if the Medicare taxes are in the âlock boxâ with Social Security? Oops, I guess that didnât happen.
Unfortunately, many of us suspect our taxes are merely in a massive slush fund for politicians to spend as they like. Useless airports, bridges to nowhere, supporting campaign donors businesses, trying to ensure certain prime ministers donât get elected, bussing illegal aliens from one state to the next to disburse them, that kind of thing. There is no respect for taxpayer money. Itâs all magic play money to them.
I have a question. I was thinking about ShawSon but realized it might apply to me as well. He is likely to be an entrepreneur. He already has a Roth IRA. When he sets up or becomes a part of a startup, can he sell to the IRA some of his founders shares at his cost? I am pretty sure you can do this in a self-directed IRA. I think this is how the Mittster had so much in his IRA.
Similarly, I set up an LLC in a trust. Sometimes that LLC does advisory work, and thus any proceeds go into the trust (all this is taxable). If I set up the backdoor Roth IRA, could I set up a similar LLC within the Roth IRA?