Retirement Planning Calculator

Rules & Assumptions

GENERAL

The SSCalc.net Retirement Planning Calculator provides estimated Social Security retirement benefit, income, expense, tax and investment cash flow streams for retirement ages 62, 70 and the Full Retirement Age (FRA) for you and your spouse.
Calculations end on your 100th birthday, or the 100th birthday of the oldest of the couple.
The impact on cash flows from expenses, taxes, non-Social Security income and investment accounts IS considered in this comprehensive calculator. Non-Social Security related income categories that may impact benefits and ARE considered include pensions, annuities, 401K/IRA withdrawals and investment income. Benefits are NOT limited by "family maximums". Income categories that may impact benefits but are NOT considered include government pensions and non-retirement Social Security benefits, i.e. survivor, auxiliary, disability and family benefits.
Investment Gains provided by the calculator are those you and your spouse earn from banking every dollar of Social Security benefit at the 4.0% (default) "Investment Rate". This approach lets you compare, for each retirement option, the total amount of money generated by Social Security including the earnings from investing those benefits over the period of your retirement.
You may prefer to assume that you (and your spouse) will be spending every Social Security dollar. If so, then enter 0% for investment rate and consider the calculated results to be the total accumulated Social Security benefits only over the period of your retirement.
Additional Investment Gains are provided by the calculator using the taxable and non-taxable Investment Accounts described later in this document.
Calculations are done on a monthly basis, reporting on a calendar year basis. When a report specifies a benefit for you at Age 62, it refers to the benefit earned in the year that you turned 62.
To make valid comparisons of all retirement options, Net Present Value is calculated back to the year that the oldest of the couple is 62.
Average annual Social Security COLA (cost of living adjustment) since 2000 is 2.5%:
- 3.5% for 2001 (effective January 1, 2001)
- 2.6% for 2002
- 1.4% for 2003
- 2.1% for 2004
- 2.7% for 2005
- 4.1% for 2006
- 3.3% for 2007
- 2.3% for 2008
- 5.8% for 2009
- 0.0% for 2010
- 0.0% for 2011
- 3.6% for 2012
- 1.7% for 2013
Annual COLA is applied on January 1 of each year.
Inflation/Discount Rate is an estimate of annual inflation, the increase in the price of all goods and services. Enter as a percentage with up to 2 significant digits. Used to discount future cash flows to compute Net Present Value, or the value of total future cash flows in terms of the current dollar. The input default is 2.5%.
Investment Rate is an estimate of the annual investment gain on future benefit and investment cash flows. Enter as a percentage with up to 2 significant digits. The input default is 4%.
Full (Normal) Retirement Age is determined by your birth year. Check this ssa.gov table for details. For example, if your birthday is 08/31/1956, then your Full Retirement Age is 66 years + 4 months and you receive 7 months of benefit in the first year (i.e., your 66th year). In terms of a calendar year, you receive 12 months of benefit in the year in which you turn 67 (since your birthday is in August and you are not benefits eligible for 4 months, until January of the next year).
If your birthday is on the first day of the month, your first benefit entitlement month is the current month. If your birthday is on any other day of the month, your first benefit entitlement month is the following month.
Benefits start in the month following the month for which they are due. For example, if your 62nd birthday is July 15, your first month of early retirement entitlement is August.
Discounting Caution: Scenarios that result in many years of negative annual cash flows may yield unexpected results when discounted. Be sure to analyze both real and discounted net worth results.
The calculator gives you the option of saving the results in a CSV (comma-separated values) formatted file or opening the results in Excel. You can then add titles, company logos, re-format or edit, etc. the results to suit your needs. Please note that if you bookmark a results page and access the page sometime later, the "Create a CSV file" option will NOT correctly create your file. At that point in time, the results values only exist on the web page and are no longer part of your "session" memory.
We ran thousands of tests on over 400 test data cases before releasing SSCalc.net. Excel was used to validate the Net Present Value calculations. It must be noted that Excel performs beginning of period NPV calculations, the SSCalc.net calculator performs end of period calculations (i.e., the first year's cash flow is not discounted).
References: U.S. Social Security Administration (www.ssa.gov), Social Security Handbook and Social Security Administration Program Operations Manual System and U.S. Internal Revenue Service (www.irs.gov).

SPOUSAL BENEFITS

If your spouse reaches Full Retirement Age and is eligible for a Spousal Benefit (based on your work history) and their own benefit (based on their work history), your spouse may choose to start the Spousal Benefit and delay their own benefit.
If you reach Full Retirement Age and are eligible for a Spousal Benefit (based on your spouse work history) and your own benefit (based on your work history), you may choose to start the Spousal Benefit and delay your own benefit.
For your spouse, the maximum Spousal Benefit (based on your work history) is 50% of your Full Retirement Age benefit and requires that your spouse wait until Full Retirement Age before starting benefits. The Spousal Benefit is reduced if your spouse elects to start benefits before his/her Full Retirement Age. The benefit reduction amounts to a fraction of a percent for each month before the spouse's Full Retirement Age. Check the ssa.gov table for the exact reduction amounts. For additional details on the reduction of benefit calculations see this spreadsheet. Conversely, this rule also holds in the case where you, as worker or higher wage earner, are taking a Spousal Benefit based upon the spouse work history.
Effect of the calculator COLA assumption: the Spousal Benefit calculation takes into account the annual COLA. Example #1: You start benefits at FRA in 2011 and your spouse reaches FRA in 2013 and begins taking a Spousal Benefit. The amount of the Spousal Benefit equals 50% of your FRA benefit in 2011 plus 2 years of COLA. Example #2: You start benefits early at 62 even though your FRA is 66 in 2011, your spouse is older than you and elects to start a Spousal Benefit at FRA in 2010 when you are 65. The amount of the Spousal Benefit equals 50% of what your FRA is projected to be in 2011 minus 1 year of COLA. The calculator makes an assumption that since you started benefits early, your original projected benefit at FRA will be reduced. The amount of that annual reduction is COLA.
If you reach Full Retirement Age, you can apply for retirement benefits and then request to have payments suspended. Your spouse can then begin to receive a Spousal Benefit (based on your work history) and you can continue to delay taking your benefit up until age 70.
Benefit Status Change Assumption: in a year when the worker or spouse change benefit status (i.e. from a spousal benefit to their own benefit or vice versa), the calculator simplifies the calculation and considers the new status to be effective the full year.

WAGES & OTHER INCOME

Input categories for non-Social Security income are 1) Wages is an individual input starting at age 62 each for you and your spouse that includes wages & salary or self-employed net earnings. Wages will be increased annually by the rate of inflation, and 2) Other Income is a combined input for you and your spouse that includes non-wage/non-labor type income such as pensions, annuities, trust fund payments, etc. Other income starts at age 62 (age of oldest of the couple) and will be adusted annually for inflation depending on the user input.
If you earn too much income, your Social Security retirement benefit will be reduced. The Social Security Administration performs the earnings test for those younger than their FRA. If you are at FRA then you are NOT subject to the test. The Social Security Administration is quick to point out, though, that these benefit reductions are not truly lost. Your benefit will be increased starting at your FRA to your life expectancy to account for benefits withheld due to earlier earnings. SSCalc.net does not currently consider this earnings test and subsequent replenishment of "lost" benefits..
At this time, SSCalc.net does not handle Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from 401K, IRA or other retirement plans. This feature will be a future enhancement.

INVESTMENTS

Investment Account (deferred-tax) beginning balance is entered as a combined amount for you and your spouse at age 62 (age of oldest of the couple). Deferred-tax accounts have taxable withdrawals, i.e. 401K and IRAs
Investment Account (regular) beginning balance is entered as a combined amount for you and your spouse at age 62 (age of oldest of the couple). Regular accounts have tax-exempt withdrawals and investment gains/losses that may be taxable or tax exempt, i.e. brokerage, mutual fund, etc. accounts.
Investment Account (non-taxable) beginning balance is entered as a combined amount for you and your spouse at age 62 (age of oldest of the couple). Non-taxable accounts have withdrawals and investment gains/losses that are exempt from taxes, i.e. Roth IRA, etc.
Use these investment account balances for that portion of your total nest egg that you will be drawing from (at the 3% default Investment Draw Rate) each year in order to meet your cash flow needs.
The Annual Investment Account Draw/CF Gain report column includes the draw from all Investment Accounts plus income generated from excess accumulated cash flow at the end of the prior year. The draw from the Investment Accounts is at the Investment Draw Rate (3% default). Income from excess cash flow is at the Investment Return Rate (4% default).
The Investment Accounts principal will be drawn down (deferred-tax account first, regular account second and non-taxable account third) to meet that year's cash needs in any year that the Accumulated Real Cash Flow is negative.

EXPENSES

Annual Expenses are entered as a combined amount for you and your spouse starting at age 62 (age of oldest of the couple). The amount will be increased annually by the rate of inflation.
SSCalc.net does NOT subtract the Medicare premium from the monthly Social Security benefit. Therefore, you should include a projection of your annual Medicare costs with your other expenses in the Expenses field.

TAXES

Income Tax Rate is an estimate of the effective annual income tax rate. This is NOT your marginal tax rate. For the couple, the calculator assumes you file a joint return. SSCalc.net categories of income that are taxed at the income tax rate are 1) Social Security benefit income (you and spouse), subject to thresholds discussed later in this section, 2) Wage/Self-Employed Income (you and spouse), 3) Other Income and 4) annual withdrawal, or draw, from Investment Account (401K/IRA).
The Investment Tax Rate is an estimate of the effective tax rate on dividends/interest/capital gains from the Investment Account (Regular) and the excess accumulated cash flow from the prior year.
Both tax rates entered are used for calculations to age 100.
Income categories that are NOT taxed are 1) draw from Investment Account (Regular), 2) draw from Investment Account (Roth IRA), 3) investment gains from Investment Account (401K/IRA) and 4) investment gains from Investment Account (Roth IRA).
How much of your Social Security benefit is taxed? Generally, up to 50% of your benefits will be taxed. However, up to 85% of your benefit can be taxed if your benefit plus your other income exceed certain limits. See the explanation and worksheet at IRS Publication 915 or Taxes on Your Social Security Benefits.

CASH FLOW

In any year the Annual Real Cash Flow is positive, the calculator accumulates these funds into an "Accumulated Real Cash Flow Account" which is a taxable account.
In any year the Annual Real Cash Flow is negative, the calculator moves funds from the Accumulated Real Cash Flow account in order to meet that year's expenses. If Accumulated Real Cash Flow ever goes negative in a year, the calculator moves funds from the Investment Accounts to meet that year's expenses. The Investment Accounts will be drawn down to zero, if necessary, to meet expenses. If both the Accumulated Real Cash Flow Account and the Investment Accounts go below zero in order to meet that year's expenses, then you are officially recognized as having run out of money.
Discounting Caution: Scenarios that result in many years of negative annual cash flows may yield unexpected results when discounted. Be sure to analyze both real and discounted net worth results.