Preview of what we’ll cover today:

👷 New Proposal: Consider earlier benefits for workers

🤔 Funding Concerns: Question long-term system sustainability

🧮 Social Security Math: Understand growing planning uncertainty

✈️ Pilot Health: Factor career wear into retirement

📅 Claiming Strategy: Reevaluate when benefits should begin

🧭 Flexibility: Plan around multiple possible outcomes

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More About This Episode:

A new bill in Congress would let some workers claim full Social Security benefits at 60, seven years earlier than today’s rules stipulate. That’s a big headline. But it’s just a proposal, and it lands in the middle of a much bigger debate about Social Security’s future. Today, Ryan reacts to the news and talks about what it means for your planning. Social Security is going to keep making headlines, and the rules may change at some point. But planning around what’s proposed isn’t the same as planning around what’s real. The best approach is a plan that can adjust either way.

Go Deeper Into The Episode:

0:00 – Intro

1:53 – Blue Collar Social Security Fairness Act

3:28 – Financial Concerns and Systemic Issues

7:18 – Impact on Pilots and Long-Term Health

9:50 – Planning Ahead

Resources:

Retire Pilots – https://retirepilots.com

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Pilot Tax – https://pilot-tax.com/

The Pilot’s Advisor Podcast is also on video. Watch & Subscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3EIEBW2

Connect with Pilot-Tax: https://pilot-tax.com/

Episode Transcription:

(Note, this is an automated transcription. Please forgive any errors.)

Walter Storholt 0:05
Back for another episode of the Pilots Advisor with Ryan Fleming, your Pilots Advisor. I’m Walter Storholt, and today we’re talking about a new bill that would lower the Social Security retirement age for some people. Now, this is not a new bill that’s like been passed into law. It’s just a proposal. It’s just an idea. It’s a new bill in Congress. It’s been introduced and being talked about. But hey, they’re talking about it, so we’re going to talk about it to see what all of this would entail. Ryan, this is nothing new to you, right? Like, there’s always these little like feelers and and these little bills related to Social Security. Seems like a couple each year that kind of catch the headlines a little bit.

Ryan Fleming 0:40
Yeah, this this one’s frustrating for me. I know one of the things that we’re talking about in the markets right now is things will probably be a little bit volatile going forward because of midterms.

Walter Storholt 0:49
Yeah,

Ryan Fleming 0:50
but this just to to me this shows how financially inept our government is to even discuss this when we always we already know that we have massive, massive problems with Social Security, with it not being funded appropriately, with it having to be reduced, with or the way I like to say it is, the math doesn’t math anymore. Right. So with 10,000 baby boomers retiring every single day and starting to draw off Social Security, which is 10,000 people that aren’t adding into it anymore, to have a bill that proposes reducing the Social Security age is going in the wrong direction. So it’s frustrating to me. Now, when we dig into the details a little bit, okay, I see what they’re trying to do, trying to you know take. I think a big part of it was trying to protect some of those workers that are in jobs that you know they beat up your body that you’re not going to be able to work till 67, which which I get a little bit, but I find it frustrating. How about you?

Walter Storholt 1:51
Well, let’s let’s give the audience the breakdown and and then we can expand a little more. So the Blue Collar Social Security Fairness Act is the name of this bill was introduced in late September by Representative Haley Stevens, a Democrat from Michigan. It would lower the full retirement age to 60 for workers in physically demanding jobs like construction, nursing, and manufacturing. 60-that’s a big change, right? So that’s that’s the big headline. Workers would qualify through a points system based on years in a qualifying job, or through 20 plus years in certain professions. Obviously, today it’s retirement age of 67 for anyone born 1960 or later, and if you claim at 62, Ryan, you get a 30% reduction. So now they’re saying, hey, full Social Security at 60, but only for this group of people, and the rest of the article and the bill kind of just talks about the problems with Social Security and things like that. But we don’t have to dive into all those necessarily. But yeah, so with that scope, does that change your initial reaction at all?

Ryan Fleming 2:54
A little bit, but not really. It’s hard for me to put it into a Social Security context when I know that the numbers don’t work anymore, and for us to actually be reducing, it’s going to make the problem even worse from a budget perspective and national debt. It almost makes me feel like those particular jobs, no different than like let’s say the military or something like that. They need to actually fund a pension for these individuals somehow, some way, but yeah, I don’t think the context helps me much. To be honest with you,

Walter Storholt 3:27
yeah, I feel like there’s you know we talk about how there’s lots of these kinds of little solutions about Social Security floating around out there, but every single year we’re seeing a couple of these. So instead of one big okay, folks. Here’s how we’re going to do it. It seems like the only way we’re really going to get there with Social Security is this death by 1000 cuts or fixes by 1000 band aids, maybe to try and just continue to limp this thing along. Is that maybe just the best approach at this point? I

Ryan Fleming 3:55
don’t know. I mean, you know, I think a solution for me, you know, what’s happening with a lot of these companies, and it’s even happened at the airlines where we’re negotiating different things because the pensions are going away, and now it’s a four 1k benefit, and then you know it keeps changing. Is it going to be a market based cash balance plan? Is it going to be a B fund contribution, or benefits are being stripped at other jobs? Well, no different than healthcare. At some point in time, you get to make a choice, right? If you gave me the option right now to never pay into Social Security again, and just give me back the money that I’ve already put into it, and I’ll figure it out on my own, and never be on Social Security again, I would, I would take that 100 times over. Give me all the money back that I’ve paid into it, and I’ll figure it out myself. And if the if if we’re not going to have a responsible government that’s going to have enough assets on hand to actually pay the social security benefit that was promised, then maybe that’s what it needs to do. Like when you start going into life and deciding, all right, I’m going to start working now. Are you going to check the social security box? Are you going to uncheck the social. Security box, but at least then you have a fair fight with the money that you’re putting into it, and you at least have some semblance of getting some of it back, right? Yeah, I mean, because that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be there to help individuals when they get to that stage of life. But why would I? You know, am I going to pay into it the whole time and get nothing back? That’s not fair.

Walter Storholt 5:25
Attention, aviators! When you’ve spent years in the cockpit managing the complexities of flight, isn’t it time you navigated your retirement with the same precision? Introducing retirepilots.com. Right at your touchdown zone on our homepage. There’s a beacon flashing. Get my free toolkit. Click that, and you’ll be cleared for a direct route to Ryan’s Retirement Toolkit, tailor-made for pilots like you. Inside, you’ll find two of his important works: The Pilot’s Advisor and Pilots Retire Early. Between these two books, you can decipher the nine critical decisions when retiring before 65, and discover the seven lessons to help pilots land safely in retirement. But that’s not all. This toolkit is packed with altitude high value, including extras to get your retirement plans off the runway and light the afterburners on your 401k. Vector on over to retirepilots.com to grab your toolkit and let’s embark on this journey together. Yep, I agree with you. That’s very frustrating, but again, it’s just like lots of different solutions that people have to the problem, and maybe we get there by just continuing to to work at it. You know the date 2032 has talked a lot about the latest trustees report projected that the main retirement trust fund will run short by 2032 and will trigger a benefit cut of more than 20% But it seems like a lot of these solutions are just trying to push that date out a little bit. If we tweak these three things, we can make 2032 become 2036 or 2040, and if we tweak a few more things, we can push out a few more years. But

Ryan Fleming 7:06
and and it’s kicking the can down the street, you know that it’s it’s you know little fixes versus fixing the overall problem, and that and that’s you know that’s what’s frustrating.

Walter Storholt 7:16
Now I didn’t hear pilots as one of these jobs, but I would imagine that you know if you’re just looking at some of these physically demanding jobs, I know that being a pilot and a full career in the air and in the cockpit can be pretty demanding on you guys. So I don’t know, maybe pilots could be part of this program. If if they were, would you recommend that people look at that age 60 and the full retirement benefits. Do you think a lot of pilots would go for that for the Social Security payout? Just hypothetically.

Ryan Fleming 7:46
Well, I think it’s a case by case basis. I mean, everybody has different health issues. Being a pilot definitely is physically demanding, and more so environmental, I think, than anything else. I mean, it’s definitely physically demanding from a lack of sleep, time zone changes. I mean, all that. But I think that where I focus on it a little bit more as I age, you know, and have been doing all these years of flying, it’s being up at altitude with that sun exposure and the radiation, and and I don’t think we truly understand the long term effects of that. You know, I think I think we know what’s out there, but but you know the airlines don’t want to talk about it. You know, brain cancer, throat cancer, all the other things that many many pilots deal with. So, if you can’t tell from my reaction to a lot of this, it’s frustration.

Walter Storholt 8:33
Yeah,

Ryan Fleming 8:33
and and everybody’s situation’s a little bit different, and and that’s what makes it difficult. I I can tell you what, a lot of my clients are talking about.

Walter Storholt 8:42
Yeah,

Ryan Fleming 8:42
you know, it used to be the the social security question was when should I claim, and I I always used to say, well, tell me when you’re going to die, and then we’ll do the math on it, right? We’ll have a break even point whether you should wait till 70, claim at 6567, 62. You know, we’ll just do some math and make some assumptions, and I think now the conversation really has changed because no different than you talk about that date of 2032. That’s when it’s going to fail. So should you just take it now and get what you can? Will you be grandfathered into the old rates? Because I think most people agree at this point in time, change has to happen. Social Security is not going to just go away, but it has to be reduced. It has to be reduced because the math doesn’t math. But someone’s

Walter Storholt 9:29
going to lose in the equation. Oh yeah, oh yeah. So

Ryan Fleming 9:33
should should you take it down, invest it if you don’t need it, and you know, of course, then taking it while you’re still working, it’s that much more of it that’s going to be taxed. I mean, there’s there’s a lot of issues surrounding it. So the answers I have are I I don’t know because I don’t know what’s going to happen.

Walter Storholt 9:49
Yep. Well, one thing’s for sure. One thing we can predict is that Social Security is going to keep making headlines, Ryan. That that topic’s not going away by by any means. So

Ryan Fleming 9:59
no, it won’t. Good talk. Good talk on that one, Walter.

Walter Storholt 10:02
There will be another proposal a few months from now. I’m sure we’ll come back and talk about that one as well, right? But if you’ve got questions about Social Security planning for retirement, your finances as a pilot, and you don’t know where to turn, Ryan Fleming, of course, is the pilot’s advisor. Works with pilots all across the country with all the major carriers, helping them prepare to get to through retirement, answering the big questions and gaps that are in your financial plan. It’s very easy to get in touch. The best way to start the process is to order the toolkit. We’ve got a link in the description of today’s show. It’s a retirement toolkit built specifically for pilots with Ryan’s books. More information. It’s a great starting point for serious retirement conversation, and that also qualifies you most importantly for a free portfolio analysis, where it’s not just Ryan and I kind of talking generally about finances, but him meeting with you one on one and taking a specific look at your plan and your portfolio. So click the link in the description of today’s show to get that and sign up for that free portfolio analysis and be on your way to better financial guidance and a better financial future. Ryan, thanks so much. We’ll talk to you soon.

Ryan Fleming 11:05
Great talking to you as always, Walter. Positive rate.

Walter Storholt 11:07
Gear up.

Speaker 1 11:13
This episode is for educational purposes only and is not individualized investment advice. The Pilots Advisor LLC is an SEC registered investment advisor. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Past performance is not indicative of future results, and investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai