Making Retirement Numbers Work

Allow me to differ with “The Added Benefits of Delayed Retirement” [Aug. 1] and to show my reasoning.

If you were to begin [collecting Social Security benefits] at age 62 and collect for three years (at 80% of your maximum), the total amount you will have received for this period will take you 14.4 years to retrieve if you were to wait until age 65 at 100% of your maximum. Simple arithmetic proves this out.

Although I anticipate living beyond 79.4 years, the law of averages is presently against me, as are all published tables on life expectancy.

JAMES S. LOMBARD Jr.

Mount Pleasant, Mich.

Editor’s note: If a worker retires at age 62, it does indeed make sense to immediately begin claiming Social Security benefits. However, the story referred to was about people who continued to work after reaching retirement age. For them, there are more considerations. To wit: Social Security has an earnings limitation for beneficiaries. If you are between the ages of 62 and 65, you lose $1 in Social Security for every $2 you earn over $9,600. If you are between the ages of 65 and 70, you lose $1 in Social Security benefits for every $3 you earn over $15,500 in 1999. (These limits change each year.) As a practical matter, those who will continue to work and earn any significant amount of income are essentially precluded from claiming Social Security benefits--even if they want to. Of course, if they don’t work in order to claim more Social Security, they lose out on those additional wages.