The glory days are looking particularly golden for certain citizens of America who have the financial ability (and desire) to retire while deferring their Social Security benefits — which that’s becoming more common these days, gratitude to the pandemic-era conjunction of stimulus payments, rising housing prices, and stock holdings.
ACCORDING TO A NEW ANALYSIS OF OFFICIAL DATA BY THE WASHINGTON POST, the COVID-19 environment has provided some of the biggest motivations to retire in recent history. Simultaneously, many retirees are deferring their Social Security benefits to receive larger monthly payments, reports Go Banking Rates.
WaPo Examination
According to a WaPo examination of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the workforce who claimed for Social Security payments in the fiscal year ended in September fell 5% from the previous year’s same period. As per the Social Security Administration, this was the largest drop in twenty years.
Over the same time frame, the number of staff aged 65 to 69 who retired increased by 5% year over year. As a result, during the outbreak, the population of retirees in the United States increased by around 3 million, roughly twice as much as anticipated before the outbreak.
Three Factors Fueling Trend
According to many specialists, three factors have fueled the pattern: generous governmental stimulus and unemployment compensation payments; larger retirement savings as a result of market gains, and rising housing prices. In addition, COVID-related limitations have forced elders to pertain to Social Security benefits available on the internet instead of in field offices.
We usually see higher reliance on Social Security benefits during downturns. We believed that was going to be the case with the pandemic, said Lauren Hersch Nicholas, an economics professor of Colorado at Denver, to the Washington Post. The alleged figures just do not support this.
The appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has helped contribute to both health and economic uncertainty, is yet another factor driving current retirement rates, particularly among women.
