Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Ron Roberts Founder and CEO of Roberts Retirement Group Discussing Social Security Planning for Retirement

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Ron was born in Burbank California and grew up in the Mojave Desert. Being the first of six children born to deaf parents, he learned responsibility at an early age. His commitment to family and faith is unwavering. It’s the essence of who he is and the foundation of his business success. Living for a higher purpose and caring for others has always been Ron’s focus.After high school, he joined the United States Coast Guard where he learned about hard work, discipline, and duty. He enjoyed serving his country and helping to keep people safe. He grew in experience through training, education, and travel. He developed a love for the sea and enjoys boating and sailing with friends and family.After completing his time with the Coast Guard, Ron served on a mission for the deaf in Chicago for his church. While there, he formed the first deaf scout troop in Chicago for the Boy Scouts of America. Returning from Chicago, Ron attended college in Stockton, California where he met his wife, Julie. They were married in the spring of 1984. In 1991, Ron and Julie moved to Amador County where they enjoyed raising their four daughters in a close knit community. Ron’s hobbies include reading, boating, sports, and traveling with his family. Ron also volunteered at a private school where he taught history and American Sign Language. Family, faith, and community are the most important things that define Ron.Ron’s chosen vocation as a Retirement Planning Professional allows him to use his experience, his gifts, and his love for family to help people in a very special way. Ron has been in the retirement planning industry since 1990. Founded in 2002, Roberts Retirement has grown over the years to serve families in northern California and around the country.Ron has served as President of the California Estate Planning Counsel and continues to mentor other retirement planning professionals all across the United States. He is constantly educating himself on the most up-to-date investment strategies and changes in the financial industry. Ron is recognized as a leader in the industry, is a sought-after speaker, and has been featured in Senior Market Advisor MagazineLearn more: https://www.robertsretirement.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ron-roberts-founder-and-ceo-of-roberts-retirement-group-discussing-social-security-planning-for-retirement

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with as Ron Roberts, who's the founder and CEO of Roberts Retirement Group, and we'll be talking about Social Security planning for retirement. Ron, welcome back to the program. Well, thank you, Mike. I'm glad to be here.

Thank you. Hey, so I know that Social Security is a big, big topic. We can probably spend a whole weekend seminar on that one thing alone. And it tends to be like the main focus, only focus for people for their retirement. But in reality, it's just a piece of it. So you've got to make sure that piece of the puzzle fits the right way. So where do you begin working with your clients when they start asking questions about Social Security planning? Yeah, so I would say about half the time I'm working with a new client,

they are already receiving Social Security benefits. And I would say the other half are not yet receiving retirement benefits. So one of the questions I would ask the client is, what's their intention of retirement? Now, if they say to me, well, I'm planning to retire early, say 602. And then the next question I have, are you plans are to trigger your Social Security benefits at 62?

And the majority of the answers are absolutely. And I do point out to them that when you do retire at 62, it's called early retirement. And meaning that you can still do some work, you know, receive W-2 income, 1099 income, but it's limited to around $20,000. And that means you can work part-time and earn that kind of money. However, if your intentions is to go back to work after receiving Social Security benefits at an early retirement benefit, anything above that $20,000, every dollar you make, or excuse me, every $2 you make,

you have to give $1 back to Social Security. And so if you know that, then great. But I point that out so they know. Or they may say, no, my intentions is to wait until full retirement, which could be 66 years old or 67 years old. And then we talk about, okay, when you're 66 or 67, basically, if they're born before 1960, it would be 66. if they're born after 1960 at 67. It's called full retirement age. So they're able to get full retirement benefits.

Income is not a discussion any longer. You can continue to work if you wanted to. And you wouldn't have to get any money back to Social Security because you've reached full retirement age. So we look at that. And then we have some clients who say, well, you know, I don't think I really. need Social Security as well

maximum age is 70 so if you want to work till 70 or excuse me if you want to wait till 70 to receive your Social Security benefits then that's called maximum Social Security so anyway some of the other factors

we ask is that health family history family is there been longevity in the family or not and some will say no. I just had an appointment with a gentleman who was 74 years old and he was saying to me, he says, Ron, I can't believe him I'm alive. I've outlived my parents. My parents never made to

age 70. My siblings never made age 70. So he's pretty bought into the fact that he's on borrowed time. But then we have others who say, yeah, we have longevity. We have a lot long. life expectancies. And so we factor in Social Security plan with that. And if I'm working with a husband and wife, I talk about possibly deferring the husband's Social Security to 70. And while she and the wife takes her benefits now, because chances are he may go first.

And when he does, she will get his Social Security, which is much greater than her. Social Security. So we might do it with both husband and wife planning of maybe waiting until 70. So different factors are asked to in regards when to trigger the benefits. Others would be, well, I will need income. I plan to retire and I need income now. And so we might factor it.

It looks like you may need to start triggering your Social Security now and start taking out income now. and then we'll have others who may not need income now, and they're able to defer the benefits. One of the new things have surfaced is recently, within the last couple of years, is Social Security has announced publicly that if we don't do any stream measures of changing Social Security now and leave things as they are, the Social Security Administration announced that by the year 23, the Social Security Trust Fund will be completely depleted. And so what they're saying is we'll still pay benefits, but the benefits will be reduced. And they're talking about a 24% reduction in benefits.

So now this new crease has put into place. Now we have to talk about the future in planning for their retirement by saying, okay, well, there's going to be a gap in your benefits. after 2034, so we need to address that gap. And so again, there are innovations that today that came out within the last three years that's answering that concern. And so anyway, those are just kind of some of the factors we discuss when we have Social Security planning. You know, you mentioned Gap, and I would suggest and think that you also are articulating with the client, okay, what age do you want to retire? How long do we need to have the money last? And then

how much money do we have? And then you're determining a gap overall. So, okay, well, if we need X number of dollars per month, you've got this much in Social Security benefits if you claim now or weighted and you're factoring all this in. But I would suspect that that next piece that you just mentioned accentuates and highlights the gap because maybe that Social Security benefit that you're calculating with could go down if that estimate is actually true. So my question is, how do you address the overall gap as well as factoring in what some of those things that we don't even know is going to happen? We don't know if that 24% reduction is going to happen or if it's going to be 14% or 4%. That's correct.

I'd like to share a quick story. This happened a few years ago. I was in Charleston, South Carolina, and I was with my grandson, Carter, and we're in this beautiful park. And what was interesting in the middle of this beautiful park was a pay phone. And I looked at my grandson, eight-year-old grandson, and said, Carter, do you know what that is? And he looked at it. He says, he didn't know what it was. He said, what is it, grandpa?

I said, well, it's a pay phone. And I took out my smartphone and said, before we had these devices, before we had these smartphones, we're using these pay phones. And in fact, the pay phone did work. And we actually made a phone call to my daughter in American Fork, Utah. And so my grandson, I'm taking a picture of my grandson on the phone. He may never see another pay phone for the rest of his life. But the reason I share this story is many folks have a retirement plan, but it's a pay phone type of technology,

especially if they have mutual funds in their existing plan. Mutual funds is a technology that was developed in 1930s, and it hasn't really changed nearly 100 years. And today, we have innovation. And innovation is making retirement planning better and improved. And I call that smartphone retirement. So basically what we're doing is we meet folks. I said, well, your current plan is this, but you can have this proposed plan with all these new innovation.

So one of those new innovation addresses the social security concern is it's called social security gap, which means when Social Security does cut your benefits, through our existing plan that we put in place with you, not only will it cover the loss that you have from Social Security, but you're able to make a surplus above what you're ready to be taking out when we had full Social Security. So we implement that plan. And again, it is now given the knowledge.

Now they have the plan put in place to address when the reduction does happen. They have the ability not only to cover what they've lost in Social Security, that gap, but that gap is covered by this plan in place. Not only will they be able to maintain their income, but also have a surplus on top of that. So they now, they know that the plan is in place to address that. Yeah, that's a big point. And again, it gets back to that piece of mind that we've been talking about. You want to have a plan which kind of gives you some peace of mind. You want to make sure that the plan is performing the right way, which continues to give you peace of mind. I'm going to go back to the comment about the potential that there could be some cutbacks on Social Security. Do you feel that it's similar to back in the 2007-8 era when the banks were failing and the government stepped in and said this bank is too big to fail? This bank is too big to fail. company is too big to fail. Do you feel that Social Security is too big to fail and that any

adjustments will be just some cutbacks versus Social Security is going away? Yeah, I know Social Security has been working. I do recall back in 1983, Social Security announced that they're running out of money and they were able to fix that. And what they would do, then they would tax Social Security because before 1983, Social Security benefits were tax-free. So after 1983, they now said 50% of your Social Security benefits will be taxed, and then the remaining 50% would remain tax-free. And then again, in 1993, Social Security announced that we're running out of money.

So then they said 85% of your Social Security will be taxed, and your remaining 15% would be tax-free. So now they're on the drawing table and say, hey, we're running out of money again. And so they're having discussions, and they're pretty radical discussions. I don't think the American people are ready for it, but some of the things I've been discussing

is removing early age of 62. They're talking about maybe moving full retirement, not with our generation, but our children's generation, that they may not, may not be able to receive benefits until they're 68 or 70. And so those are kind of drastic things that they're hoping that they don't have to go there. But what they are announcing is, if we don't do anything drastic between now and 2034,

we're going to run out of money. And we'll still pay benefits, but at reduced rates. So we have to implement that in our plan. the plan is we're doing a big picture plan and we're talking about have a plan in place for their lifetimes. And so that needs to be addressed. So with the current innovation we've had, we can address that and put that in place. And if you plan for that potential cut of that specific amount of reduction and it's not that big, then you're in good shape. But if you don't plan for it, now you might be in trouble. So I think that just makes such a huge point.

You know, one of the things that you were bringing up to is the different claiming ages. And we do know that there is no one plan for Social Security claiming that works for every single person because everyone's different. But isn't there something, if you can afford it, if you don't have the need for the funds or the healthcare and you can delay it, how much of a benefit is it each year for someone if they're delaying their benefits? Yeah, with the current plans in place, it's 8%. So your benefits increased by 8% every year when you defer it. So when you're planning and you say with my other existing plans in place, we should be fine of receiving income from those sources and then defer social security. So if that's what they're thinking, then we put that plan in place and just kind of figure out by every year at their firm, your benefits will increase by 8%. And then they will know approximately what their income would be when they are ready to trigger social security. Yeah. And again, if you don't have two nickels to rub together and you just need to get it started right now, then that's the obvious choice.

but if you can make it through that 8% per year can really help in that growth. So I think that's really important. And you mentioned something else that I wanted to go a little bit deeper on married couples and the claiming. And should the husband claim later or the wife, this and that, go a little bit deeper on some of the different strategies that they can consider for married couples. Yeah. So we're trying to maximize their retirement benefit. and we mentioned social security is actually for married couples, is paying for two people.

And so we look at if the husband's income, now things are starting to change now, we're even seeing the wife's income is greater than the husband's income. And so her benefits are greater than his benefits. But if the husband's benefits are bigger because we have the numbers, then we go back and say, well, chances are he may pass first. And when he passes first, you would receive his greater benefits because we deferred it till age 70 and you're younger than he is.

Therefore, let's maximize his benefits at 70. When he passes, you'll basically assume his benefits. and you would lose your benefits because your benefits are less. So that's kind of an ideal situation if we're doing some planning. And so we point that out. And at times, they both agree that that would be a good plan in place. So anyway, that's what we do effectively. You know, merry couples in social security planning.

Yeah, and again, it lend makes me go right to the point we just made. There's no right plan for each married couple. Everyone's going to be different. But what about divorced spouse benefits? How do they work if you're able to take advantage of some of the benefits from a divorce spouse? You can. One of the factors is that the divorce person is not remarried. if that person is remarried, then I believe we can't get into his benefits.

However, if he's still single or she's still single, we can get into their benefits. And so, again, that's something that they can make a claim to and trigger. So, again, that is definitely a possibility if they want to claim their ex-cows as benefits. Yeah, that's a great point. And again, working with someone like yourself to ask the right questions and to know how things fit together that just really make sure you're optimizing everything possible. And with all of these, I guess, let's say choices that we've been talking about, I don't think that it's something that people can do on their own because isn't it true that once you claim and you put that into place, it's done. It's not like you can change it up in six months. And then, and add something in later. So talk a little bit about, you know, how concrete are these claiming options once you put them into place? You're absolutely correct, Mike. When you're working with the government and you make a trigger, the government is not forgiving. Once you made that decision, you can't backtrack it and say, hey, I made a mistake. I want to make a change. It doesn't happen.

There are no exceptions. you want to be sure before you make that trigger, you're making the right decision. And so working with an advisor that is keen to that information, and when you sit down with that advisor, you're going to pick out what the best choice is, what the best triggers are. And then after that discussion is made, and that decision is made, then you go ahead and trigger it, knowing that's the best thing to do. So, yeah, doing on your own and not having the background. the experience and then making that, you said, oh my gosh, I should have done this. Once that trigger is made, you're stuck with it.

It's like playing chess and you make a move and you leave your finger on the piece and you look around and make sure, is this the right move? And then finally, when you decide, yes, it is, you take your finger up and now we're good. So similar here, you need to get with the right people, look at all of your options, make the right plan and then you make your decision knowing that, you know, except for an dire emergency, this is this is the plan. And you touched on something just a second ago there. I really want us to really clarify and go deeper on because in our society today, if we have a problem or an issue or a question, we either ask Alexa or go to Google and we go figure it out. But sometimes

if you Google, what should I do about Social Security claiming? You're going to get millions and millions of answers, ideas, strategies, sometimes they're conflicting. So talk a little bit about where people should get the best information. We know Google is there. We know even that the Social Security Administration on their website has information or you can go to their office and get information. But will those sources have the right plan to put into place? Yes, there is so much information out there, There's so much noise out there. And they don't address the specifics to you personally because they don't ask you questions. Yes.

Because questions are important. So having the correct questions asked and the type of answers are given through these questions. So if you go online, they're going to ask you questions. They're just going to give you information. and some of this information can be completely wrong for your particular situation. So you want to be sure that you work, it's like having a meeting with a doctor about your health, and the nurse practitioner is going to ask you a series of questions, and you're giving answers.

So it helps the doctor to give you the right prescription based on your health needs. So it's the same thing with your retirement needs. we would ask you questions and you'll give us answers. And then based on those answers, we can give you the correct prescription in your particular needs and your retirement plans. So that's how important it is to meet with a qualified person who knows what they're doing. Well, Ron, I think that has just been spectacular information here on helping guide some of the perspectives of security planning. If someone is interested in learning a little bit more and reaching out and connecting with you, what is the best way that they can do that? Yes, they can reach us on our email address.

It's Roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S at Roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S retirement.com. Or they can go into our website, it's Robertsretirement.com. And you can call us at our number at 209, 2-2-3-3-3-3-3-3. 37870. Excellent. Well, Ron, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure to be with you too, Mike. Thank you. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.

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