when i start drawing my social security at 66 will it affect my retirement benefits?

will i have to take a cut in my retirement benefits or in my social security benefits or can i receive the maxium on both benefits?

Public Comments

1. I do not know about your retirement benefits. However, the date for Social Security retirement varies depending on the year in which you were born. It is a misconception to assume that the retirement date for everyone is 65 years old. The federal government continues to increase the age at which individuals can retire with full Social Security benefits. Check out www.firstgov.com It is a great site for anything and everything regarding the United States government. When you get to the site look for a link to the Social Security Administration (I have not been there in some time but I think that you can do an alphabetical search). Once at the SSA you will no doubt find the table that list the full retirement age depending on your birth year. Good luck.
2. Ok, here is the sad news on that. Social Security will decrease the amount they will give you due to recieving a private pension. The pension will not be reduced, Social Security will be reduced. Cannot recieve max on both. Best source of info on this is the benefits manager in human resources at your job or the pension fund rep. They can tell you all about this. When you go to the social security office about 3 months before your planned retirement date they will ask to tell them the approximate amount your pension will be. You must get this info from rep before you go to that appointment. Then the S.S. person will tell you about what your S.S. will be. They will adjust this if your pension am't turns out to be different than thought. Then a few monthe later, some mysterious person at S.S. will send you a letter that says after review at has been necessary to reduce your benefits again. In other words, don't plan on much from S.S. I get about one half what they originally said I would get from S.S. This, by law, applies to everyone on a pension plan in addition to S.S....EXCEPT U.S. Senators and Representatives...they are allowed to get max on both!
3. You will receive the maximum from both funds, however, part of your social security may be taxable depending on how much other income you receive.
4. Depends on the type of pension--but if they are unrelated (i.e. your pension comes from your 401K or your previous employer) the amount you receive from your pension should remain unchanged. And the amount you receive from social security should not be effected by what you get from your pension. The real bad news is that it could change how much tax you pay on your pension because you will have more income, and a good bit of your social security could be taxable (depending on your income--can't fully answer without all the details).