4 Unfortunate Ways You Could Miss Out on Social Security Benefits
There's a good chance you'll rely on Social Security to cover your living expenses when you get older to some degree. As such, you can't afford to slash your benefits needlessly. But if you fall victim to these traps, you could wind up with a lot less income -- and a lot more heartache.
Your Social Security benefits are based on your personal earnings history. Specifically, your highest-paid 35 years on the job are taken into account when determining what your monthly benefit will be. But if you don't manage to work a full 35 years, you'll have a $0 factored in for each year you're missing an income, thereby resulting in a lower monthly retirement benefit. It could therefore pay to extend your career a bit and replace some of those $0s with an actual income. This especially holds true if your earnings are much higher late in your career than they were at the beginning of your career.
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Source Fool.com
