3 Social Security Secrets for Even Bigger Checks

If you don't have a massive retirement account or a solid pension coming to you, you're probably going to depend on Social Security income more than you expected to. Even people with those expected income streams will find Social Security income quite valuable. It's not likely to provide quite as much as you'd like, though: Recently, the average monthly retirement benefit check was just $1,564, or about $18,768 annually.

You'll get more than that if your earnings history has been above average, though, and on top of that, there are ways to make your checks bigger. Here are three.

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Source Fool.com