The Social Security Administration has quietly rolled out a redesigned Social Security statement to selected account users not currently receiving benefits.
The revised statement, which has been reduced from four to two pages, was based on extensive research, according to agency spokesman Darren Lutz. “It aims to streamline and clarify the messaging and make it easier to find key information at a glance,” he said in an email.
The new statement, launched May 1, spells out the estimated monthly benefits people get every year from age 62 to 70, rather than just for ages 62, 67 and 70. The information is spelled out in the form of a bar chart.
Lutz explained that this “soft launch” of the redesigned statement is a small step and went out to a small percentage of “my Social Security” account users not currently receiving benefits. He added that earlier this year, the agency published nine supplemental fact sheets online that further amplified certain messages customized to a person’s age and earnings situation.
The redesigned statement was first reported by ThinkAdvisor, which followed up on a tweet by Jeffrey Levine, chief planning officer at Buckingham Wealth Partners. Levine’s tweet showed two pages of a redacted version of the redesigned statement that he had received.
Levine asked in the tweet, “When did this happen?”
No one else among the Twitter responders had received the new statement, but the reactions were positive.
Lutz said that throughout the soft launch, the agency will continue to gather feedback and make updates as needed.
“The Social Security Statement is one of the most valuable and effective tools a person can use to learn about their earnings and future Social Security benefits,” Lutz said in an email. “It is a very high agency priority to educate people in clear and plain terms about Social Security’s programs and services, and about their potential future benefits and current earnings record.”