Today is a significant day
for me in this warped world we live in.
Today, October 28, is my half birthday, meaning that today, I am 65 and six months years old.
This year, that really isn’t worth the paper—or the computer screen—that it is written on, but next year, it will potentially mean a lot to me.
Next year, when I am 66 and six months years of age, I reach what the government claims is my full retirement age, and thus, I can make as much money as I want to without surrendering any of my Social Security payments.
As you know if you are a regular reader of this blog, I had to surrender a whopping $124 this year from my September Social Security payment because I had the audacity to make more than the cutoff salary outside of my Social Security earnings during calendar year 2021, and they hit me up for 50 cents on the dollar that I made over the limit, and I had to pay it back.
I guess they thought that the whopping amount that I was making from Social Security could completely help me exist in this inflationary time, but obviously it couldn’t, but since when you take early retirement, you do get penalized for doing so—even if it was out of your control, as mine was—and you get hit with a penalty for every dollar you make over the minimum.
I still have my little freelance job, I still make money from it, but for 2022, I should not be over the amount, I should be under it this time around, so I won’t owe the government anything.
This penalty is so ridiculous that it just happens to go up each and every year, and the minimum goes up again this year and goes up next year, too.
If this pattern continues, it will go up to a point that if you made this amount of money, why are you retiring so early anyway?
That being said, I got hit for the $248 that I had the nerve to make over the limit in 2021, and this increasing limit won’t ever affect me again, and on October 28, 2023, I can finally make whatever amount I can make and still collect my full Social Security check each and every month.
That is all fine and good, but of course, there is one problem here, which is this:
Who is gong to hire a 66 and a half year old worker in his field of aptitude?
As I have found out the hard way as a 65 and a half year old, probably no one will.
There is age bias out there, I have been a victim of it even though I cannot prove it—this goes back to when I lost my job at age 62—and the chances of me ever working full time again, or making the salary that I should be making from whatever employer might decide to sign me up—is pretty much nil.
And after being out of the full-time workforce for a couple of years now, it would probably be tough to get back into it—although with the right opportunity, and the right paycheck, I think I could manage.
I applied for more than 1,000 jobs from the time I lost my job to the time right before I was going to lose my unemployment insurance, and there appeared to be no interest in my services whether I was applying in my industry of expertise—publishing—or any of the other industries I applied for a job in—supermarkets, entertainment, etc.
Heck, the one job that I did get, as a foodservice worker with the Long Island Ducks minor league baseball team, was obliterated by COVID, so I had absolutely no luck in finding any job during that horrible period of time.
And that is not counting the dozens of resumes I sent out prior to losing my job, when I knew my place of business was doomed, when I got a few nibbles, but ultimately, absolutely nothing.
I have sent out a few resumes for jobs since being semi-retired, and again, I fit these jobs perfectly like a tight glove, but I cannot get hired because of my age.
Go prove it though!
So here I sit, with a possible pot of gold at the end of my rainbow in just a year’s time, and I am as far away from seeing that pot of gold as I am at winning the lottery.
It is like the carrot is there, but it is just going to keep hanging there, dangling there for the taking but still so far out of my reach.
I still have my updated resume on my computer, and if I sea something that is viable for me, I will apply for the job, but I have doubts whether I will ever work again on a full time basis.
And I also have to think that it is the potential employer’s loss if they don’t hire me, which is a thought that kept me going during my lowest times after I lost my job.
I have to think that ... because what is the alternative?
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.
Today, October 28, is my half birthday, meaning that today, I am 65 and six months years old.
This year, that really isn’t worth the paper—or the computer screen—that it is written on, but next year, it will potentially mean a lot to me.
Next year, when I am 66 and six months years of age, I reach what the government claims is my full retirement age, and thus, I can make as much money as I want to without surrendering any of my Social Security payments.
As you know if you are a regular reader of this blog, I had to surrender a whopping $124 this year from my September Social Security payment because I had the audacity to make more than the cutoff salary outside of my Social Security earnings during calendar year 2021, and they hit me up for 50 cents on the dollar that I made over the limit, and I had to pay it back.
I guess they thought that the whopping amount that I was making from Social Security could completely help me exist in this inflationary time, but obviously it couldn’t, but since when you take early retirement, you do get penalized for doing so—even if it was out of your control, as mine was—and you get hit with a penalty for every dollar you make over the minimum.
I still have my little freelance job, I still make money from it, but for 2022, I should not be over the amount, I should be under it this time around, so I won’t owe the government anything.
This penalty is so ridiculous that it just happens to go up each and every year, and the minimum goes up again this year and goes up next year, too.
If this pattern continues, it will go up to a point that if you made this amount of money, why are you retiring so early anyway?
That being said, I got hit for the $248 that I had the nerve to make over the limit in 2021, and this increasing limit won’t ever affect me again, and on October 28, 2023, I can finally make whatever amount I can make and still collect my full Social Security check each and every month.
That is all fine and good, but of course, there is one problem here, which is this:
Who is gong to hire a 66 and a half year old worker in his field of aptitude?
As I have found out the hard way as a 65 and a half year old, probably no one will.
There is age bias out there, I have been a victim of it even though I cannot prove it—this goes back to when I lost my job at age 62—and the chances of me ever working full time again, or making the salary that I should be making from whatever employer might decide to sign me up—is pretty much nil.
And after being out of the full-time workforce for a couple of years now, it would probably be tough to get back into it—although with the right opportunity, and the right paycheck, I think I could manage.
I applied for more than 1,000 jobs from the time I lost my job to the time right before I was going to lose my unemployment insurance, and there appeared to be no interest in my services whether I was applying in my industry of expertise—publishing—or any of the other industries I applied for a job in—supermarkets, entertainment, etc.
Heck, the one job that I did get, as a foodservice worker with the Long Island Ducks minor league baseball team, was obliterated by COVID, so I had absolutely no luck in finding any job during that horrible period of time.
And that is not counting the dozens of resumes I sent out prior to losing my job, when I knew my place of business was doomed, when I got a few nibbles, but ultimately, absolutely nothing.
I have sent out a few resumes for jobs since being semi-retired, and again, I fit these jobs perfectly like a tight glove, but I cannot get hired because of my age.
Go prove it though!
So here I sit, with a possible pot of gold at the end of my rainbow in just a year’s time, and I am as far away from seeing that pot of gold as I am at winning the lottery.
It is like the carrot is there, but it is just going to keep hanging there, dangling there for the taking but still so far out of my reach.
I still have my updated resume on my computer, and if I sea something that is viable for me, I will apply for the job, but I have doubts whether I will ever work again on a full time basis.
And I also have to think that it is the potential employer’s loss if they don’t hire me, which is a thought that kept me going during my lowest times after I lost my job.
I have to think that ... because what is the alternative?
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.
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