Throughout your working life as an employee, or for that matter, as an employer, you are required to pay social security which is deducted from your pay check. Depending on how long you are in employment, (you could retire early or be forced into retirement through ill health) will determine what you are entitled to receive in your retirement. The varying forms of benefit are social security benefits, disability benefits, military benefits and private funded benefits. The payments that you made whilst working away to secure your future were collected and lovingly cared for by the government. Now if all goes to plan and with the wind in the right direction! then theoretically this money has been invested and multiplied and should be re-paid to you in your later years. The question remains; is there, or will there be anything in the pot at the day of reckoning?

As of this writing over 96% of the population in America are payees into the social security system. The system has, up until now, a pretty good record of looking after it's own and one or two others along the way. The sum that you receive in retirement is calculated from the amount, or for how long you paid in to the system, in a nutshell, the longer you were a member of the social security system, the more you got back.

On the subject of early retirement through disability, there's no reason why you shouldn't receive full disability benefits throughout your retirement, provided that your case is genuine and that you have been certified as unable to carry on working as a result of your disability. Naturally this must be certified by a medical doctor in one of the social security accredited hospitals.

Military veterans and their dependants are automatically part of the health care system provided specially for their needs by the government. Any member of the armed forces requiring information about social security benefits should get in contact with their local government agency.

For the more astute and forward thinking individual, and of course the ones that have the funds to spare, private savings and pensions are the best alternative to ensure a comfortable retirement. Although initially they are more expensive to maintain, they are a good and usually safe investment for the future. A private pension is also probably more flexible, with the option of lump sum payments or higher monthly payments for life.

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