Social Security Payment Anomaly

[vineman93]

My wife applied for retirement benefits on her work record to begin in December2012. She will be 68 in the middle of January 2013. The payment summary from SS states that her benefit in December will be $1521 and the regular payment effective in January wil be $1513. Since the COLA was 1.7% why did the payment go down instead of going up? Can anyone explain this anomaly?

[sscritic]

How much is her medicare in 2012; how much is her medicare in 2013?

Did she already pay her December 2012 medicare on her own?

[vineman93]

Her medicare was $99.90 for 2012 and 104.90 for 2013. The SS payment amounts are before subtracting for medicare payments.

[sscritic]

It actually should go up based on the delayed retirement credits.

If you retire before age 70, some of your delayed retirement credits will not be applied until the January after you start benefits.

As of December 2011, she had a bunch of delayed credits (I could count, but the number isn't that important for this discussion). Her December benefit would include those delayed credits. Her January benefit would include those plus 11 more for Jan 2012 through Nov 2012.

Now here is the trick. They don't actually get around to paying them to you for a while. See a thread where nisiprius and I go around about this issue. What you see is what she is going to get paid, not what her actual benefit is, at least I think that is what your letter says.

None of which explains her numbers. A phone call might help. They will be open on Monday. They might even be open today (I forget - nope, see below). You could have called yesterday, if yesterday was when you got your letter (unless you didn't open it until after they stopped answering the phones).

If you cannot handle your business through our automated services, you can speak to a Social Security representative between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

[vineman93]

Thank you sscritic for clearing that up. You are a real asset to this forum.
John Ellis