Exclude Social Security from retirement income projections?

Hi,
I'm revisiting retirement planning, and I completed some online calculators to see where I am in relation to my goals. I know these things are of limited value, and you can't predict the future, etc.

In one particular scenario, I did one calculation using the default for social security income, and then did it again assuming I won't get anything from social security.

If I assumed that I'd get social security, it calculated that I didn't need to save any more - basically just go on cruise control with my current savings until I got old enough to retire.

If I assumed that I didn't get social security, but left all my other assumptions the same, it calculated that I needed to save almost $2k a month until retirement.

Things like this make me just want to throw up my hands in the air and not bother doing any projections. Of course I'll still save, but I've considered just waiting to do any projections until I'm in my 50s. Am I wasting my time?

d3

I always use current law/conditions when planning (tax, retirement, estate, etc). If things change in the future, I'll deal with it then. I don't worry at all about my SS benefit, but then I'm less than 5 yrs from being able to claim early retirement benefits (and it is a very small percentage of my projected retirement income). I can see how younger people could be concerned, though.

Domingo3,

Why not use Your most current report from SS? That is likely to be the best data available.

As you say, who knows what the future holds.....
Maybe we should watch the movie 2012 to find out!
And if that is the sceinario, does it really matter what SS pays you?

Clydewolf,
Of course I can use my current SS report or make projections of my future earnings, but the point here is I might want to assume that I won't get any SS. I'm 25 or so years away from being able to collect.
I've seen some conversations that theorize that the future may be such that social security benefits will be structured so only those financially unprepared in retirement will receive benefits.
I don't know if that's a reasonable worst case scenario, or if that's an over-the-top assumption.

I would certainly feel more comfortable about my state of retirement preparation if I felt I could count on the $20k per year or so that my wife and I would be getting if things stay as they are. If I won't be getting that, it means I have to be saving more now, or work longer.

Money is one of the two things in life where too much is not enough.

I, too, am more than 25 years away from taking SS (at 68, so I have 27 years to be exact). But I'm fully expecting it. For one thing, I don't see the government being able to yank SS away from those of us who are more than halfway there. There's the question of fitness to afford retirement. *I* -- and you, and many others like us -- have worked half or more than half of our careers with the expectation that SS would be part of our retirement. That's how we saved, planned, and spent. Our generation was raised NOT with the notion that "SS won't be there for you, so you'd better save every penny", but with the notion that "If you want more than the bare minimum existence SS provides, you'd better save something, and how much depends on how much more you want out of life." There's a HUGE difference between those two points of view.

Also, I won't say it's "too late" for us to save, but I think it's too late for us to save what would be required to totally support ourselves -- without SS -- in retirement. If the government should propose it, you will hear the howls of outrage from everyone over, say, the age of 30. That's a lot of voters.

Further, there is at least one very simple fix which would at the very least put off the day of reckoning, and that's eliminating the income cap. Do that one little thing, and those of us in our 40s, and perhaps in our 30s, should have no fear of not living long enough to see our first SS checks -- and once we see the first, they really have no choice but to keep funding it, otherwise they'd be dumping all us poor old people out in the cold, starving, homeless, pathetic, (add more adjectives as needed).

Besides, it is axiomatic in public administration, that once you give the people a benefit (like SS, or Medicare) it quickly becomes a "right" in their minds. Once it's a right, you can't take it away. Tell me -- what's the argument that you think would work, which would eliminate SS for any worker, of any age, today. I think even if the government said, "We'd have to disband our armies and close down Homeland Security, if we keep paying you SS," we'd still scream that they need to find a way to fund SS AND the other things, too! -- after all, Europe does it, and they even fund MORE benefits than we have, and they're doing just fine, thank you very much.

Even if you could possibly pass a bill that would cut off, say, every 19 year old and younger from taking SS benefits, they are still going to have to PAY for the Ponzi scheme that is SS, and they would howl with outrage that they have to pay for something they will never enjoy. Wonder how that will play out in front of the Supreme Court?

In short, we're in a government-run Ponzi scheme, and while most Ponzi schemes eventually collapse under their own weight, the transparency and oversight of our National Ponzi Scheme practically guarantees it MUST be supported, come hell or high water. You can't cut off the young from benefits, without freeing them from the obligation to pay (I believe that's what any SCOTUS decision would come down to) -- but you can't do that, because you wouldn't have the money to pay current benefits. The wheels on the bus go round and round.....

What's the other thing Clyde? Smores?

"A woman can't be too rich or too thin." -- The Duchess of Windsor (Wallis Simpson)

I agree that any politician that would want to get re-elected would probably not halt social security.

Just to play devil's advocate, it seems they could gradually reduce the benefit by reducing or eliminating COLA. Over 20-30 years (plus another 30 in retirement), that could have a significant impact.

Domingo -- not a bad solution, but again -- howls of outrage. Witness the howls when it was reported that SS recipients would not receive an increase this year. Despite the fact that the cost of things has gone down, what you're hearing is that the government has "abandoned" our seniors during the WORST recession in recent memory, those dirty, nasty, evil politicians -- they're killing off our elderly! It's the start of the death panels! Chaos! Anarchy!

Every decade or so, they will probably continue to increase the minimum age to receive benefits.

When it was established in 1934 (I believe), SS was not supposed to be used as long as it currently does per person due to the changes in the average American's lifespan over all these years.