4 Critical Dates to Understand Social Security
Social Security provides the cornerstone of most Americans' retirement plans. In concept, the program looks simple: You have money taken out of every paycheck to help cover the cost of your benefits. Once you retire, you start collecting, with your benefit based on your contributions over the course of your career.
In practice, however, when it comes to collecting, Social Security can be a minefield. For instance, if you were born in 1960 or after, what you receive can be as low as 70% of what you expect or as high as 124% of what you expect, based on how old you are when you start collecting. And that's only one of the possible things that can affect what you take home from the program. To make the best decision for yourself about collecting your Social Security, there are four critical dates to understand.
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Source Fool.com