The Social Security income in the Tabular view does not match what the calculated value should be. I am 67 and 6 mos, my wife is 69. She took SS at her FRA of 66. In the Simplified inputs it specifies if she is already taking SS to enter the current annual amount. I don't plan to take my SS until age 70, so I entered the annual amount for my FRA, 66 and 4 months. When I go to the tabulations, SS income (i guess for us both) is approximately 85% of what I would have expected. If I change my SS to what I would be receiving at my current age or at 70, it is less than expected.
This throws off all the income stream calculation. Is there a workaround or am I entering something wrong?
@jjodod There are no known problems in this area and I just set up a test using the information you provided, and it appears to be working correctly. Would you please send me (mail@pralanaconsulting.com) a representative export file so I can investigate with your exact set-up?
Thanks,
Stuart
I too have had confusion on how to set up my SS income.
I am 68, planning to start Social Security at 70. I understand that in PRG I need to input my SS benefit as of FRA, but my FRA was almost 2 years ago. I can use an old SS statement, which will show the 2022 FRA amount, but will PRG apply the actual COLAs in 2023-4, or will it apply the system inflation rate or (adjusted inflation rate)? Considering the high COLAs of the last 3 years, I would want the forecast to be based on the actual rates.
Do I need to calculate a custom FRA amount that will model correctly through the current year when using the system inflation rate (or adjusted rate)? I would need to update this calculation each year to reflect actual COLAs, until I turn 70. This seems like a common situation, so I must be overanalyzing it!
Thanks!
John
@johnc You're correct that this is a weakness in the current design, so you will need to reverse engineer the FRA value to account for the actual COLAs over the past couple of years.
Stuart
There are some tools out there that will do the math for you, opensocialsecurity.org might. You can even call the local SS office (do so as soon as they open) or stop by (some may require appts so call first). As long as you're not totally dependent on SS to make it in retirement, or right on the line of success, it likely won't matter if you're off by a few dollars or whatever. When you start collecting you're going to indicate already collecting and put the exact amount in anyway.
Log in to SSA.gov and get your current benefit if you retired now. You can then get your current PIA by backing out your deferred retirement credits. Those accumulate at 2/3 of a percent of the PIA (not the total benefit) per month that you wait after your FRA. If you were born in 1956, your FRA is age 66 and 4 months. Subtract 66 and 4 months from your current age (if you were born in 1955, your FRA is 66 years and 2 months). Divide your current benefit by (1 + number of months after FRA * 0.006667).
To work an example, let's say your current benefit would be $3000 and you are now 68 + 4 months. So you are 24 months past FRA. Your PIA would be
$3000 current benefit/(1+24*0.006667) = 3000/(1.16) = $2586/mo.
Then write that down and make a note to adjust it upward each year by the SS COLA.
If you go to the website linked below and enter your birth date and the month and year in which you turn 70, and then click on "Compute", it will give you the increase in benefits you will receive if you wait until 70 to claim benefits in a text box. In my case, I am told that I will get 128% of the monthly benefit. I then take my age 70 monthly benefit as reported in my latest SS statement and divide it by 1.28 to get my current FRA monthly benefit. Each year before I turn 70, I would just repeat this calculation using the latest age 70 monthly benefit reported by SSA.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/early_late.html
[Edited on 2/2025 to correct and update link to SS calculator.]
@malik182 Your link is specific to 1957. I use this link and select the birth year link: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html
tl;dr version: I used my SSA-calculated age 70 benefit and divided it by Pralana's delay factor to calculate a FRA value for my benefit that worked in setting up Social Security values in Pralana.
Just to recap what I’m talking about, I was looking for what value to enter into the Social Security setup page for Annual Benefit Amount that would yield an income that was in line with what my SSA statement shows I should expect. When I used for the Pralana setup the current monthly benefit on the SSA statement, the value Pralana calculated for age 70 income was significantly higher than I expected. That showed me Pralana is looking back farther than I was.
What I worked out seems to work well for me in my situation (2 years past FRA, 20 months to age 70’s check. No wages to muddy the water, I’ve been retired for several years.
What I did was use the Pralana-calculated adjustment for early/late start vs FRA, which for me was listed as 129.3% increase from FRA. It is listed if you click the Social Security income value on a Review page.
I used that 129.3% increase by taking the SSA listed benefit at age 70 (let’s pretend it was $4000) and dividing it by 1.293, yielding $3094 (monthly). That implies that the FRA value for PIA that Pralana would use would be $3094 x 12, or $37128 annually.
When I used $37128 as my Annual Benefit Amount on the setup page for Social Security, I liked what came out of the Income Review page. It showed a value for 2025 that was $37128, and for 2026, my age 70 year, it showed almost exactly what I expected to match my SSA statement. I’m happy, good to go, since I see a value that is 2025’s value increased by the default inflation rate.
I predict this would work for other situations, but didn’t try any since I only have my own data (the above is fictional, but somewhat in the ballpark).
