Mary Beth Franklin: Social Security, Medicare, and Smarter Planning

Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more@uhjoinwfadvisors.com

Speaker B: when should I claim? Social Security is one of the most important retirement decisions clients make and it's one of the most emotional. Hi everyone. I'm, uh, business coach Steve Sandusky for Barron's advisor the WayForward podcast. My guest today is Mary Beth Franklin. Mary Beth is a longtime Washington, D.C. based journalist, certified financial planner, and one of the country's leading experts on on Social Security, Medicare and retirement income planning. In today's conversation, Mary Beth explains why fear about Social Security's future is causing some clients to claim too early. She also talks about how advisors can coordinate Social Security with Medicare premiums, Roth conversions and survivor benefits. And she shares one of the biggest mistakes she sees advisors make, which is misunderstanding how survivor benefits work, which can cost widowed clients years of cash flow. With that, here's my conversation with Mary Beth Franklin. So you have a very interesting lens that you bring to this discussion about Social Security in that you've come at it really, I think, from three different angles. So one is the, the Washington policy angle. You, I think, have lived in Washington, D.C. for maybe more than 40 years now and you've covered policy around financial services. You also have the household behavior lens because you also are a journalist and worked for some of the consumer facing finance magazine. So you understand how consumers think. And then also the advisor lens as well. You work for investment news as a journalist and so you understand how advisors think. So let's go back to 1983. I think you were covering some big Social Security reform back in that year. So think about what was going on back then, what the political environment was like back then, how we're able to get some new legislation done around Social Security and then compare that to where we are today.

Speaker A: Well, I think that I've had a lifelong relationship with Social Security. Back in 1983, I was a Capitol Hill reporter for United Press International, if you remember that name, one of the big powerhouses of wire services. And that's when Social Security was actually in danger of running out of money and not being able to meet their checks. And we look at how perhaps dysfunctional Congress is right now, but it was no picnic. Back in 1983, to refresh your memory, we had Ronald Reagan, the great Republican communicator in the White House. We had Tip o', Neill, the lion of the Democratic Party, as, ah, speaker of the House. Two powerful politicians that did not see eye to eye on anything, except they agreed that Social Security was one of the most important programs in America, mostly because old people vote. And they said, we will do whatever it takes to fix this program. And it truly was at the last minute. And the solution they found was to appoint a bipartisan commission to come up with a set of proposals for Congress to vote up and down. Well, back then, they appointed a guy who few people had ever heard of at the time, but you might remember his name, Alan Greenspan was the chairman of the bipartisan Social Security Commission. He, of course, later became the very famous chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. But he did so many things that were so smart back then, one of which was looking for 40 years in the future and saying, you know, we're going to have a huge baby boomer population starting to retire around 2010. Let's raise FICA, uh, payroll taxes now and collect more money than we need now and hold them in reserve. That's what the trust funds are. So if things get shaky in the future, we will have this added money to help pay benefits. And that's what we've been doing, that we created this excess trust fund of over $3 trillion between about 1983 and 2010. And then several things happened in 2010. We had this major financial crisis. Many people lost their jobs. They were no longer paying FICA taxes, and neither were their employers. And it was the first wave of baby boomers starting to retire. So, so less money was going into the trust funds, more money was coming out in the form of benefits. And that was the first time that FICA taxes alone were not sufficient to pay all of the promised benefits. And we started tapping the interest on the trust funds. And around 2020, the interest alone wasn't enough. And now we've started to draw down on the actual trust funds that helps pay today's benefits. Now, sometime around 2033, those excess trust funds are going to run dry. That does not mean Social Security is going broke. It means there will be about enough ongoing FICA taxes to pay about 80% of promised benefits. But frankly, you, me, and every one of your clients are not going to be satisfied with 80% of benefits. And Congress knows that. And I cannot believe they really want to tick off more than 70 million senior voters.

Speaker B: Well, and do you think it'll come down to the last minute, that it'll be the end of 2032 when Congress finally takes some action, or do they have to do it well before then?

Speaker A: It would be smart if they did it well before then, but I think based on past experience, they will probably wait till the last minute. And there are several things they can do. Unfortunately, if they would move sooner rather than later, it would be more effective. For example, that huge trust fund we talked about at one point worth over $3 trillion, now about 2.8 trillion. It is invested in special interest government bonds that do not exist anyplace else that pay about 2.5% interest. And they have been doing that for 40 years now. Just think, if a portion of that trust fund could have been invested in the stock market with bumpers like the federal TSP program, how much more could have been earned on that trust fund to really help with the financing of the program? But the problem is, if you keep waiting and that trust fund becomes exhausted around 2033, it doesn't matter how much interest you earn on a trust fund that's worth zero. So if they could take steps sooner while they're still principal in the trust fund, that would certainly help a lot. Other things they're going to have to look at most likely are, uh, the actual FICA tax. And at this point, employers, employees each pay 6.2% combination, 12.4%. If that was immediately raised to 16.4%, a uh, 4 percentage point increase, it wipes out the entire problem, it solves the entire financing problem. But politically you are never going to solve the entire problem, the tax side, because the Republicans hate tax increases, the, the Democrats hate benefit cuts. And just like in 1983, you are going to have to find a compromise that makes both parties equally unhappy. And, uh, it's hard to do that in the traditional congressional committee system because there is so much political animosity going on. And I know a lot of people hate the idea of a bipartisan commission, that it's taking the decision making out of Congress's hands for the most part, but it is expedient. And my gut feeling is they might have to do that again.

Speaker B: Well, maybe there is a glimmer of hope because you mentioned that in 1983 Alan Greenspan was on this bipartisan commission. And I think Alan Greenspan back in the 1950s was an acolyte of Ayn Rand and very much sort of a libertarian thinker. And taxes are theft and you know, that whole concept. But then he certainly changed his stripes to some extent over the years. So maybe there's hope that, that Congress can get its act together and we can find some kind of bipartisan solution here.

Speaker A: Let me tell you one other brilliant thing that the Greenspan Commission back then did. They said, Americans are living so much longer. And again, this is 40 years ago, we're living even longer now. But most Americans are collecting reduced benefits as early as possible at age 62. What can we do to get them to delay collecting to an older age when the benefit would be worth more so it's more valuable to them in their later years? Well, back then, these delayed retirement credits we've all been talking about recently, hey, if you wait to collect benefits beyond your full retirement age, you get an extra 8% per year every year up until age 70. This is a smoking hot deal. This is great. Well, back in 1983, that delayed retirement credit, which was not 8%, it was 3%. But think back to 1983, the prime rate was 18% with a 3% surcharge. So who in their right mind would have delayed collecting benefits for measly 3% a year? They could have stuck it under the mattress. So Greenspan said, let's gradually increase the delayed retirement credit. It's 3% a year. What do you think guys? 8% sounds, um. This podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at. Uh. JoinWFAdvisors.com Pretty conservative because we have 18% interest rates. Let's do that. Let's gradually increase it by a half a percentage point every year until it gets to 8%. And we will apply it to anyone born in 1943 or later. So the years come and go. This first wave of baby boomers born in 1943 hit their full retirement age of 66. And it's 2009. What else happened in 2009? We had the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The stock market went down more than 30% and for the first time, Social Security said, I'll give you 8% a year if you wait up until age 70. That began this whole industry of, of Social Security planning.

Speaker B: You know the problem though, with the Lane Is that, yeah, if I wait till I'm 70, but I may not be in good health to enjoy that extra money and so.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, absolutely, yeah. It's like the lottery. You must be present to win, you know.

Speaker B: Right. But why couldn't the government just say, rather than you have to wait till you're 70, what if they said, look, for each year that you delay, we're going to give you a current year tax credit of some type. So that way I pay less in taxes in my current year in return for delaying taking my Social Security. And that way I save money on taxes in the current year when I'm younger and hopefully I'm healthier, and then maybe I don't have to increase the 8% in the future years. So it's sort of like, give me the money up front and I'm more likely to delay. Could we do something like that?

Speaker A: I'm sorry, you weren't on the commission in 1983. It's probably a valid idea, but, uh, they put together the compromise that they were able to get through Congress. The other amazing thing that the Greenspan Commission did was they said as long as 90% of US wages are taxed for FICA purposes, Social Security will never, ever run out of money. The problem is, over the past 40 years we have such an income inequality as far as wages go. As you know, we are only taxed on wages up to a certain amount. This year it's increased to about $186,000 a year. You pay your 6.2% up to your $186,000, uh, in wages, and anything above that is not taxed for Social Security purposes, little portion for Medicare, but not Social Security. As a result of this great wage inequality. It had been 90% of US wages were taxed back in 1983, now we're down to 83% of US wages. The two big factors of why Social Security is in such financial imbalance is the wage disparity of how much more of those excess wages are not being taxed. Now granted, only about 6% of the working population is affected by that maximum wage cap. And the other thing is we don't have enough babies, we don't have enough future workers in the workforce to keep paying these FICA taxes. So demographics is one issue and wage inequality is the other. So whoever are the people coming together to come up with a solution, have to work around those two big issues.

Speaker B: You may have touched on this, but I think it was, uh, George Bush back in like 2005 didn't he have a proposal where they would divert maybe a couple percent of the payroll taxes and put them in investment accounts or something?

Speaker A: Or that was the idea of privatizing Social Security, which in my opinion not a great idea because again, this is not people's individual accounts. This is a big pool of social insurance money. There are other options people have through their 401ks, their IRAs, through their investment account to save individually. This is a force saving system, a social insurance pool. And frankly, for many people in this country, if they didn't have Social Security, they would have nothing in retirement. It was designed during the Great Depression. It was Franklin Roosevelt's great piece of the New Deal that basically said we are going to have employers and employees pay into this mandatory system so they will have dignity in retirement. And the backdoor of it was, and also let's get the old people out of the workforce to free up the jobs for the young people during the Depression.

Speaker B: So where does Medicare fit in all of this as well? So does that have some kind of trust fund too? Is there some concerns about the solvency of that?

Speaker A: Medicare is funded a bit differently. There's the Medicare hospitalization, which has a trust fund that's part A, and, and the 1.45% of the FICA taxes that you and I and our employers pay on all of our wages, even in excess of the annual taxable wage base funds that Medicare hospital trust fund. And yeah, it's an even shakier shape than Social Security because of the high cost of health care and the huge number of baby boomers that are getting at advanced age. And people tend to have higher medical bills in the later part of their lives. The Medicare Part B, that's what pays for your doctor's bills and outpatient services, that has a monthly premium. And each year the Department of Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate what the cost is going to be. And they divvy that up among Medicare beneficiaries to pay a monthly premium. This year, the premium for most people is $202 a month. Now that was a big increase from the previous year, up more than $17 a month in the previous year, which meant that it took a big bite out of the cost of living adjustment that Social Security beneficiaries got. Because once you collecting Social Security and you're enrolled in Medicare, your Medicare premiums are deducted directly from your Social Security check and Medicare is means tested. In other words, the more money you have in retirement, the more you are going to pay for Medicare, which I think is the biggest surprise that most retirees face, particularly advisor clients who tend to have higher incomes that trigger these high income surcharges. And I think this is where advisors who are well versed in both Social Security and Medicare really have an edge. Because face it, most of your clients, regardless of their level of wealth, when they start thinking about retirement, the first question they usually ask is, when should I claim Social Security? And you as an advisor, to be able to walk them, um, through that decision has a huge edge. And I will warn you up front, people are emotionally involved in their Social Security decision. They've paid for it all their lives through their FICA taxes. They may be wedded to a certain viewpoint depending on their political outlook. It is not your job as an advisor to tell them what to do. It's to lay out their options and arguments pro and con and listen to them of what they want to do and then explaining to them the consequence of their decision. You want to take it early. Okay. Are you prepared to take a 30% cut across the board for the rest of your life? If you're fine with that, your eyes are open. Okay. If you think having a, uh, bigger guaranteed monthly income later in life and you're willing to wait for that, okay. That's the benefit of delayed retirement credits, if you're willing to wait. And for married couples, let's talk about a coordinated strategy. You probably don't both need to wait till age 70. Let's have the spouse with the bigger benefit who tends to be the husband, who tends to have been the bigger breadwinner, who tends to be a few years older. Let's have him wait until age 70 to get the biggest retirement benefit possible while both spouses are still alive. And guess what? He's probably going to die first. And if he does, he's now created the largest possible survivor benefit from for his widow. Now, okay, let's stay on that page. Let's say the wife was the smaller earner. She did work during her career, but probably didn't earn as much as her husband. She has her own retirement benefit. She may want to go ahead and collect her retirement benefit early at 62, if she's not working and subject to the earnings restriction. And yes, her retirement benefit is going to be reduced by up to 30% or for the rest of her life. But guess what? It will have no impact on her survivor benefit if she is at least her full retirement age when she becomes widow. So it's a great way for married couples to basically Take these break even points we always hear about and stretch it over two lifetimes. It makes a lot of sense.

Speaker B: Do you see most advisors having those conversations? I imagine there's all kinds of software out there that will help you do all those calculations and make it easier.

Speaker A: I really do find advisors who do use sophisticated Social Security planning software. And there's all sorts of packages. Many are built right into the, the system of their brokerage that they use. It's very, very helpful. And when people say, wow, you could increase your lifetime Social Security benefits over your joint lifetimes, retirement benefits, spousal benefits, survivor Benefits by over $100,000 a year, this is a significant amount of money. But I also see advisors understanding the basics here, the basic milestones, the red flags, but they get confused. Now Social Security has more than 2,700 rules that govern Social Security. I understand why people get confused. That's why I'm here, to answer advisors questions and consumers questions. The biggest mistake I see advisors make is saying, I have this widowed client. I told her to wait until age 70 to get the biggest survivor benefit possible. And I say, no, no, no, only a worker's own retirement benefit continues to grow by 8% a year up until age 70. A, uh, survivor benefit is worth the maximum amount at the survivor's full retirement age. So someone who tells their widow's client to wait till 70 to collect a survivor benefit just wasted four years of cash flow for that widow.

Speaker B: Yeah. So lots of nuance in there. Now, how often do you think advisors have the client sit down and go through some type of analysis to get the best estimated projection of their lifespan? So I know I've got a colleague, Jeremy Kyle, who he's got a couple websites that he'll have his clients go to where they'll put in a lot of information about their health condition and it'll come back based on various other types of data and give a maybe it's a probability. Like, you know, you have a probability of X living to age Y type thing. Do you see people doing that? So they think about, or are they just making sort of a, uh, qualitative guess of, well, I think I'm in pretty good health, so I think I'll delay because I think I'm going to live time now 95. Or are they actually putting together, as Jeremy does, some kind of analysis just to get a little more information on what their health condition is like?

Speaker A: I think some advisors will put their clients to the various, you know, longevity calculators. I think people are most Governed by their family's longevity gene. My dad lived till 85, my mom died at 60. That's a real built in bias, understandably. Genetics play a lot of. But you know, if your dad smoked three packs of cigarette today and you're playing pickleball five days a week, you're probably going to live a little longer than your dad did. I think people tend to underestimate their life expectancy. I mean according to Social Security, the average 65 year old man is likely to live till 84. The average 65 year old woman is likely to live till 87. But half of all Americans are going to live longer than that. And many of those are advisors, clients. The white collar, college educated, generally healthy people are the ones who go to live a long time. But if you have a new client that walks in that's 100 pounds overweight with diabetes and various underlying conditions, you're not going to take a bet that this guy is going to live till 90. I think you have to use a certain rationality and it's a tough conversation to have with the client and I think you very much put the ball in their court. Well, what do you think about your current health and your life expectancy? Tell me about your family history. You know, they're really going to help guide the decision. And certainly I think you always want to err on the conservative side that you're going to have a little more money a few years beyond what you expect to live. That's why I've always been a big proponent of having a certain amount of guaranteed income built into every retirement plan. You yes, Social Security is probably the best annuity you could ever buy. It's guaranteed to last the rest of your life no matter how long you live. And its cost of living adjusted. But it was never designed to finance your entire retirement. It's a base if you can look at your fixed cost in retirement and Social Security is unlikely to cover all those, what else do you need to do to build in some safety net? Now Me personally, I'm 71 years old, my husband 73, where he's hitting RMD age. We have several annuities that go along with Social Security. He had a federal pension. I sleep well at night knowing every one of my bills are covered and the rest is discretionary. That makes me comfortable. Other people may like to take more risks. My investments are still invested for the long term because I'm a long term investor. But. But I never worry that I'm going to have to tap my market investments right now to pay next month's bill. I think advisors still frame Social Security as the beginning of a retirement conversation, not just with existing clients, but I find it's very powerful with marketing to potential new clients because again, the first thing most people ask when they think about retirement is when should I claim Social Security? And if you as a potential advisor can be sharing this information, whether it's through a webinar or seminar or something through the library or bringing me in to speak to your clients, people are usually so grateful because the one thing I offer is I am going to answer every one of these people's individual questions. I'm not going to give you generalities and tell you how this could fit, uh, into your overall retirement income plan. The other thing is to be generally versed in Medicare, at least knowing that if you have clients who income exceeds certain thresholds, which right now is 109,000 for singles, double that 218,000 for married couples, if your modified adjusted gross income exceeds that amount of money, then they need to know they're going to be paying more for Medicare. And this podcast is brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more@uh, joinwfadvisors.com and in some cases a lot more. And the challenge is it's based on a look back period from two years ago. So 2026 Medicare premiums are based on the last available federal tax return, which was your 2024 federal tax returns you filed in 2025. So it's a little hard. You're always looking backwards for that income that is going to trigger a higher premium. And that premium could be an extra 81 bucks a month to almost an extra 500 bucks a month per person. So if you have a married couple where they're both over 65, they could be paying about $16,000 a year in Medicare premiums for a B, their drug coverage, their medical supplement, before they see a doctor or before they fill one prescription. This is probably going to be the biggest outgo of their retirement spending. And how can you ignore a big number like that without planning for it? There's a certain Runway that people have. If they maybe retire early and delay collecting Social Security, they may be able to do some Roth conversions along the way to get some money into tax free accounts. But be aware that when you do a Roth conversion, which is a great idea in many circumstances, it's going to boost your AGI. And if that happens in any year when you're 63 plus, it's going to boost your Medicare premiums two years later. Now, it may be worthwhile because Medicare premiums are recalculated every year. Maybe you take a big hit one year and rip off the band aid and just pay a big Medicare premium that year, or, or maybe you're going to do gradual Roth conversions each year. But try to do it mindful of I don't want to go into the next high income bracket because these are cliff brackets. You go $1 over $109,001, $218,001 and you're in the next bracket. And the brackets are fairly narrow in some of these. And you can really find yourself paying enormous amount of Medicare premium.

Speaker B: Well, Mary Beth, what is the biggest mistake or the biggest miss or the biggest thing that advisors aren't thinking about or even consumers aren't thinking about when it comes to their Social Security planning or Medicare planning?

Speaker A: Well, I think the fear of Social Security running out of money is causing a lot of people to claim benefits sooner than they should. Now, I'll tell you right up front, even though I was a Capitol hill reporter for 10 years and once upon a time was fairly confident that I knew what Congress was going to do next, I do not have a clue. The current administration in the current Congress has just rewritten all the rules and I would be lying if I told you what's going to happen. But I also think we get enough notice in most cases that, uh, things are going to change. You can adapt as needed. Right now, I think we can only operate in an environment based on current laws. And the current law tells me I can claim Social Security benefits as early as age 62 compared to maybe my full retirement age of 67. But if I do, um, I know I'm taking a 30% cut right off the top for the rest of my life. And let's say your worst case scenario happens and the trust funds run dry and, and Congress has to cut Everybody's benefits by 20%. That's on top of the 30% you already took. How's that working out for you? I think the idea of if you need the money, certainly claim your Social Security benefits. That's what it's there for. If you don't have longevity in your Family, you probably don't want to wait. If you need the money, take it. If you're ill, take it. But if you're taking it early just out of fear, to me, that is like cashing out your stock portfolio in a down market. The only thing you have guaranteed is you just locked in a loss.

Speaker B: So last year we had the Social Security Fairness Act. So tell me a little bit about that. How is that working out?

Speaker A: The Social Security Fairness act repealed two pieces of legislation that had been hated by public sector employees for the 40 years it had been in effect. There was basically two rules. One was called the windfall elimination provision. Think w windfall worker. If you had worked long enough in covered employment in the private sector at least 10 years to earn a, uh, future Social Security benefit, and then you went to work for certain state, local government, maybe you were a policeman, fireman, teacher, and you earned a pension from that public sector work that was based on work where you never paid payroll taxes. You would get this pension, but it would reduce any Social Security benefit you had earned. That was the windfall elimination provision. A separate, more onerous rule was called the government pension offset rule. GPO think growing grumpy partner. This said, if you were, let's say, a Texas school teacher that never paid into Social Security, you were part of the Texas Teachers Retirement System, but you were married to somebody who paid into Social Security all their life, you thought, well, I should get a benefit as a spouse, or after my husband dies, I should get a benefit as a survivor. Maybe not. Because the government pension offset rule said if you have this public pension based on work where you didn't pay FICA taxes, and now you try to collect Social Security as a spouse or a survivor, in many cases, your pension is going to wipe that out. People hated this rule. And every year for 40 years, legislation was introduced to repeal it. And every year it just died. Well, lo and behold, December 2023, the last piece of legislation that the US Senate passed was the repeal of these two provisions. And it was called the Social Security Fairness Act. And it was signed into law into January 5, 2024 by President Joe Biden, retroactive to January 2024. This said all those people who had been getting reduced Social Security benefits, Social Security is going to automatically recalculate, pay you a back benefit all the way back to January 2024. And going forward, you're going to get a bigger benefit. And that was great. That affected nearly 3 million people because those people who had worked long enough in the Social Security system were in Social Security records. They knew who they owed money to. But so many of these spouses and survivors who were told, don't bother applying for Social Security, you'll never get it. Your pension will white it out. Social Security didn't know they existed. These people had to apply for a benefit to get a benefit under the Social Security fairness Act. One of my older sisters is married to a retired Philadelphia policeman. He never paid into Social Security. He had his own police pension. My sister worked. They were always told he could not get a benefit on her record because his pension was too big. So he's now 85. And I called my sister and I said, do you know about the Social Security Fairness Act? And she said, no, never heard of it. He's been paying dues to the fraternal Order of police for 50 years and nobody told him about this law. Never heard of it. Go to ssa.gov create an online account form right on the homepage@, uh, ssa.gov@ the bottom is something called the Social Security Fairness Act. Ah. Click on it. It explains how to apply for benefits. Who's entitled to it? Well, lo and behold, about a month so later he got a back check for over $20,000. Going forward, he received a monthly Social Security benefit for the first time in his life. And for the first time, because they had been paying out of pocket for his medicare, it was now deducted from his new Social Security benefit. And if he had died before applying for that benefit, nobody would have gotten anything. So, word to the advisors. If you are working with clients who had public pension based on work where they didn't pay FICA taxes and they might be entitled to a survivor or, or spousal benefit from Social Security, have them apply to Social Security for the benefit.

Speaker B: A great story and a great example of the value of wise financial advice. Well, Mary Beth, as we wrap up here, is there any final thought comment observation that you want to share?

Speaker A: The greatest chart table that I like to show, um, clients and advisors is the difference between claiming your Social Security benefits as soon as possible at age 62 versus waiting till the latest age of 70. My full retirement is 67. That's an extra three years at 8% a year. That's, uh, a 24% increase in my benefits at age 70. That difference between claiming at 62 versus 70 increases my monthly Social Security benefit by 77% for the rest of my life. As a certified financial planner, there is no investment I can recommend that it's guaranteed to increase a monthly income by 77%. Yes, you're investing eight years of your life in that decision, but it could make a huge difference in your retirement income plan.

Speaker B: All right, and if folks want to connect with you or learn more about you or hire you to come speak at their event would be the best way to do that.

Speaker A: They can go to my website, marybethfranklinklin.com it's filled with free information for both advisors and clients. You, you can always email me through my website and over the past two and a half years, you may have seen my special on public television that was called Social Security and you, you can see some clips of it on my website.

Speaker B: All right, that's all for today. Make sure you like and share this podcast through your favorite social platforms. And for more great podcasts, Visit us@Barrons.com Podcasts Take Care and m Be safe.

Speaker A: This podcast was brought to you by Wells Fargo Advisors. Looking for a firm your clients can't outgrow? Wells Fargo Advisors offers financial advisors full balance sheet solutions with wealth planning, investment products, banking and lending that meet the needs of affluent to ultra high net worth clients. Build your practice your way and on your schedule with independent and employee model options designed to meet your needs today and tomorrow. Learn more at uh, joinwfadvisors.

Speaker B: Com.