Olde Hornet
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If You’re 65 and Still Working, Avoid Pitfalls and Maximize Benefits
If you plan to delay retirement, watch out for these benefit traps.
At age 65, Thomas Kaiser, an instructor at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., is embarking on a new phase of his academic career. He has been tapped to serve as associate dean of a second campus in western Massachusetts, after the project receives approval from the state.
Kaiser was a member of Thomas Aquinas’s first graduating class in 1975, and he was the first of the private liberal arts college’s tutors—what the school calls its professors—to teach all 23 courses in the school’s classical curriculum, which focuses on the great books of the western world. “I don’t consider this a job,” Kaiser says. “It’s more like a calling. It’s something you get better at as time goes on.”
He hasn’t decided when he’ll retire, but he hopes to work until age 70, and he is considering filing for Social Security benefits when he turns 66. Waiting until full retirement age (66 for people born between 1943 and 1954) to claim Social Security will enable Kaiser to avoid the annual earnings test, which affects workers who claim benefits before they’ve reached full retirement age.