How to time your first Social Security check
Q: I plan to retire in August at my full retirement age of 66 and 2 months. How soon should I let Social Security know that I want to begin claiming benefits to ensure that I receive my first check on time?
A: Let’s be clear about what “on time” means because even if you give Social Security ample notice, you won’t get paid in August.
Social Security pays one month in arrears, so your first payment, which is for August, won’t arrive until sometime in September.
With that in mind, you should file your application at least 60 days before the month that you plan to retire, said Jim Blair, a former district manager for Social Security and currently co-owner of Premier Social Security Consulting in Cincinnati.
You can apply for Social Security benefits as early as four months before that point, he said.
If you expect to rely heavily on Social Security for your day-to-day expenses or will face big bills the first month you retire, the delay in payment could hurt.
“People need to plan ahead for that,” Blair said. “You just need to make sure you have enough money to get you to that point from when you retire until you get that first Social Security check, which may be a month or month and a half later.”
Q: I’ve heard about tax harvesting and the 30-day wash-sale rule. How does the IRS define “days?” Are these business days or calendar days?
A: The IRS defines them as calendar days, and the 30-day rule applies before and after the date the investment is sold. So it’s really over 60 calendar days that you cannot repurchase a security sold at a loss if you also want to claim the deduction on your taxes.
Q: How do I report my $300 donation to charity in 2020 if I don’t file an itemized tax return?
A: Nonitemizers can write off up to $300 of charitable cash contributions on line 10b of the 2020 Form 1040.
This means filers can take the standard deduction and a deduction for up to $300 of cash donations paid to a 501(c) (3) organization.
The $300 cap applies whether you file a single, head-of-household or joint return. (Note that for 2021 returns only, the ceiling is $600 for couples who file jointly.)
Winter is always difficult for people experiencing homelessness, but this winter has been especially challenging as COVID-19 has limited the capacity of shelters and restricted access to public spaces.
Here in Allentown and throughout the country, the issue of homelessness is at the front of our collective consciousness.
In response to these challenges, there has been talk lately about tiny homes — very small, temporary shel- ters — as a possible solution to homelessness in our community.
At first glance, tiny homes are appealing because they are marketed as an alternative to tent cities and can be relatively inexpensive to create.
Tiny homes feel like a way to take action — to do something — about this seemingly intractable problem.
Their surface appeal fades, however, upon closer inspection.
To begin, the relative affordability of tiny homes reflects their rudimentary nature — typically lacking running water, electricity or sanitation. There is little difference between a person living in a tent and a person living in a tiny home except the physical materials of their shelter, which offer marginally improved protections from the elements.
A housing solution should help people transition out of such circumstances rather than simply re-creating them.
Even setting aside the issue of basic accommodations, the shelter provided by tiny homes is considered transitional — a temporary fix until people are deemed ready to transition to more permanent, stable housing.
In Allentown, however, our fundamental challenge is that there aren’t enough permanent housing units for people to transition to. Further, there is no evidence that people experiencing homelessness require a temporary stop on the way to permanent housing.
The opposite is true; there is a large body of research — which mirrors our experience as practitioners in this area — showing that safe, permanent housing, combined with an appropriate level of support, is the most effective tool in helping people exit homelessness.
Finally, we need to acknowledge that tiny home villages, when used for this purpose, are effectively segregated housing for people experiencing homelessness. In the United States, people of color, people with disabilities and LGBTQ folks are statistically more likely to experience homelessness because of systemic barriers to permanent housing.
Building segregated housing for people who are already marginalized further stigmatizes homelessness and disconnects our most vulnerable neighbors from our broader community.
We hope we can all agree that segregated housing is never the right answer. Let’s work instead to foster the social connections that allow us to flourish as neighbors in one shared community.
Ultimately, tiny homes are a temporary Band-Aid intervention that fosters housing segregation, perpetuates substandard living conditions, and does little to break the cycle of chronic homelessness.
So, what is the alternative?
We would argue that our community’s energies and resources are best invested in efforts that make permanent, safe, accessible and affordable housing a reality for our friends and neighbors who have struggled with homelessness. Housing stability translates directly into life stability, which makes permanent housing an investment that continues to reap rewards — for residents and our broader community — for years.
For our neighbors who have struggled with housing instability, stable housing is the foundation for success in employment, education, family life and good physical and mental health. For Allentown, stable, deeply affordable housing is an antidote to unemployment, social isolation, school transience and dropout rates, depressed property values and blight.
The Allentown Commission on Homelessness is in the process of developing a strategic plan to address housing challenges in Allentown. We strongly support several components of the plan, including those focused on homelessness prevention, landlord engagement, an expansion of permanent supportive housing initiatives and the development of new housing units.
These strategies emphasize longterm change and sustainable solutions and, with persistence and collaboration, could help increase the availability of permanent housing for vulnerable members of our community.
Homelessness is a humanitarian crisis that deserves our collective attention and action. But we won’t find the change we’re seeking in a quick fix for homelessness that doesn’t really “fix” anything.
In Allentown, we can provide stable, quality housing, even for our extremely low-income neighbors. We can, and we must, because the only real solution to homelessness is deeply affordable housing, and temporary solutions will never lead to permanent change.
So if you find yourself concerned about homelessness, let’s talk. About permanent housing, of course.