How to Read a Social Security Statement

As we’ve said time and time again, no matter what, you can’t do any proper retirement planning without your current Social Security statement. If you have it, the planning process is much easier. Without it, it’s impossible.

There’s good news and bad news on this front. The good news is that the Social Security Administration (SSA) recently revised the format of the statement. It is easier to read and understand than it ever was before. The bad news is that it was never all that easy to understand. So let’s take a quick tour of a sample statement to see where we need to look.