if you are already drawing your Social Security, you get a hall pass today … watch for posts coming in two days as this is not applicable to you.

ANYONE who is not drawing Social Security please take a moment to review our annual reminder of your Social Security statement. We have some great new findings and the statement has been completely updated, finally!

In true “practice what you preach”  fashion yesterday morning in less than 5 minutes time a quick review of the Social Security statement was completed. Being 100% certain the filing was made since it was done in-house … but not trusting that the mail could have possibly not been delivered, this annual review is worth every bit of the five minutes it takes!

Here is the link to the newly updated Social Security log in web page…. Please take 5 minutes out of your day to log in and confirm … most importantly … that your earnings have been recorded for at least years 2020 and prior!

Annual Reminder to Review Your Social Security Statement

With a cup of Java in hand and early morning peace and quiet, in less than five minutes time a quick review of the Social Security statement due to an inbound email reminder was completed.

This year’s review was happily surprised at a complete update, (finally) of the statement. The new statement has neat bar graphs cascading from left to right showing early retirement benefits all the way to the full age 70 late retirement benefits, actually have to compliment the Social Security Association for integrating some technology, well done guys!

This year’s login which had a silly username from last year’s loss of password required email confirmation of a passcode, so just a heads up to be prepared for that.

The most important reason to review your annual Social Security statement is to make sure your years Earnings Income have been credited to your account.

In my case not surprisingly year 2021 credits had not been added as of this date … as a reminder January 31st is the deadline for employers to send the W3’s for all employees to the Social Security Administration, which is why it was not a surprise that a mid to early February review garnered no credits as of yet. Prior year credits work confirmed and again most importantly this is what you are looking for to make sure your credits were added to your Social Security statement.

From the Social Security Website:

If the earnings missing from your Social Security record are for the current year or last year, you don’t need to worry. Because these earnings are recent, we may not have recorded them yet. They should appear on a later Statement.

However, earnings could be missing from your record for earlier years for one of the following reasons:

• Your employer reported your earnings using the wrong name or Social Security number.
• Your employer reported your earnings incorrectly.
• You got married or divorced and changed your name, but never reported the change to Social Security.
• You worked using a Social Security number that didn’t belong to you.

See something that doesn’t match with your records? If there’s a mismatch between your records and the earnings listed, contact us to request a correction.

The contact us link from the Social Security Administration is purposefully hot so feel free to click on that link for contact information should you find your earnings record missing data.

Fancy new features of the Social Security website:

Scrolling just marginally down on the splash page immediately gives you a hot link to your earnings records. Again no matter what your age if you are not taking Social Security and have earnings please confirm that those earnings are being credited.

Scrolling down even further there is a fancy new graph that can be downloaded separately from your statement showing your estimated earnings benefits, cool stuff!

Wanda Worker Sample Benefit Statement

Farther down once again on the splash page is a quick calculator for a spouse or former spouse benefit based on your Social Security estimate, again cool stuff!

A hand clap applaud for the Social Security Administration for finally adding some neat tech functionality that makes the statement so much easier to read and interactive, well done guys!

Yes we can all debate whether Social Security will be there or not, but no matter the end result it’s worth 5 minutes of your time to log in take a look at the new fancy statement and confirm your earnings credits are being added to your records!

By the way this complete post has been done with a new wireless mic that is working like a charm, hat tip to the 14 year old technology son!  Can’t wait to do a video with it, constantly trying to improve!

Have a wonderful “Annual Social Security Earnings Credit Review Reminder” day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

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