Keith Towns serves as head of Emerge Financial Group and provides knowledgeable individual and small business consulting solutions. Maintaining Northern California offices in Oakland and Suisun City as well as a newly opened Houston office, Keith Towns has extensive knowledge of retirement planning and the Social Security system.

1. Social Security Statement
Estimated Benefits Easily
Accessible Online
Keith Towns

2. Introduction
 Keith Towns serves as head of Emerge Financial Group and provides
knowledgeable individual and small business consulting solutions.
Maintaining Northern California offices in Oakland and Suisun City
as well as a newly opened Houston office, Keith Towns has extensive
knowledge of retirement planning and the Social Security system.
A recent New York Times article brought attention to the
importance of checking Social Security estimates for informed
retirement planning. This has become more difficult for some since
2017, when the Social Security Administration ended its
longstanding policy of sending out paper statements annually
around the time of each taxpayer’s birthday.

3. Social Security
 Today, accessing estimated Social Security benefits is still easy, however,
it simply requires visiting www.ssa.gov/myaccount/create.html and
setting up an account by answering a series of questions. After a text or
email verification is received, the taxpayer can log on at any time and
view benefits that will kick in at specific ages, based on the taxpayer's
most recent annual earnings.
The site provides a handy roadmap of the monthly benefits that could
be expected at early retirement of age 62, at the full retirement age of
67, and if benefits are delayed to age 70. For the former, the amount is
often one-third less than that at the full retirement age of 67. For
example, someone receiving $1,500 a month upon initiating payments
at age 67 would receive about $1,000 monthly if payments started at
age 62. Waiting until age 70 would generate substantially higher
monthly payments of around $2,000.