Tag: retire

In a nation that debates nearly everything, this topic creates almost no disagreement. Americans aren’t saving anywhere near enough for retirement, setting the stage for a potentially dreary time ahead for many when they reach the closing act of their lives. In fact, a study by the Economic Policy Institute found that almost half of American families have no retirement-account savings at all.

While the widespread-savings shortfall is a given, a consensus is trickier to find when it comes to advice on just how much of your weekly salary you need to stash away if you want your retirement to be secure.

How about this idea for a new reality TV show: "Survivor: Maximize your Social Security." Rather than getting voted off the island, contestants lose when they fail to get the most out of Social Security’s survivor benefit—one of the government program’s most important features for married couples.

Here is how our reality show works. When one spouse dies, the survivor (typically, but not always the woman) has the option to take the larger of two benefits: her own or 100 percent of her late spouse’s benefit. The game sounds simple, and for many couples, it is.