It's not uncommon for Social Security to make it more than half of someone's income

in their retirement years. And because of this, because Social Security is such a substantial

amount of the income you might be receiving, it's crucial that you maximize that income.

On today's episode, Ready for Retirement, we're going to walk through what you can do

to maximize your Social Security benefit so you can maximize your overall income in retirement.

This is another episode of Ready for Retirement. I'm your host, James Cannell, and I'm here

to teach you how to get the most of the life with your money. And now, on to the episode.

Now, as we jump in, as we start to talk about how do you maximize your social security income,

it starts with understanding fully how social security works.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to explain how social security works, how it's calculated,

and then walk through four simple things you can do to maximize your social security benefit.

So let's start with understanding how social security is funded.

When you earn a paycheck, you pay federal taxes. And

depending on what state you live in, you may also pay state taxes. Neither of those go to fund

Social Security. Social Security is funded through another tax called FICA taxes or payroll taxes.

The way FICA taxes work is 7.65% of every dollar that you earn up to a cap is also withheld from your

paycheck. Those dollars that are withheld then go to fund Social Security and go to fund Medicare.

The way that works is 7.65% of your paycheck as the employee is withheld in addition to federal

and even potentially state income taxes,

and your employer is matching another 7.65% on their end. So when you look at it, 15.3% of additional

taxes are assessed on your income up to a certain base, and that's what's going to fund Social

Security and Medicare. Now, of this 7.65%, 6.2% is Social Security funding,

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