There’s never been a better time than the present to plan for your retirement.  For many people who are not sure of where to begin, an on line retirement estimator is a good place to start.  One estimator chosen as most helpful is the Retirement Estimator offered by Social Security, rated as the best online service in government by a University of Michigan study.   

Every quarter, the University of Michigan conducts the American Customer Satisfaction Index for Federal Websites.  In their most recent study, the index showed that Social Security’s new online Retirement Estimator ranked as the best in government. 

The online Retirement Estimator, www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator,  is a convenient, secure and quick financial planning tool that lets workers calculate how much they might expect to receive in Social Security benefits when they retire.  The attractive new feature of this calculator is that it eliminates the need to manually key in years of earnings information. 

The new Retirement Estimator debuted with a score of 90, the highest score in this survey.  It  is the second-highest score ever received by any government website or online service.

Several other Social Security online services, including the online retirement application, also are rated among the government’s top performers and equal to the highest caliber private sector sites, such as Amazon and Google. 

The new Retirement Estimator gives the public the opportunity to run accurate, personalized scenarios for Social Security retirement benefits in a user-friendly way.

The user can create “what if” scenarios.  For example, you can change “stop work” dates or expected future earnings to create and compare different retirement options that may be in your future.  In today’s economy, such calculators are helpful for planning retirement.

Source:  www.socialsecurity.gov