Get What’s Yours

How can you be sure you're not leaving thousands of dollars on the table when it comes to Social Security? In Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security, Laurence Kotlikoff, Philip Moeller, and Paul Solman argue that Social Security, while designed to secure Americans' futures, has become so bewilderingly complex that millions fail to collect what they’ve earned. The authors contend that understanding the rules—rather than trusting the system’s advice—is the only way to ensure you get every penny you’re entitled to.

Across nearly 300 pages, Kotlikoff and his co-authors mix humor, policy analysis, and real-life stories to decode Social Security’s 2,700 rules and tens of thousands of sub-rules. They show you how decisions about timing, marital status, disability, and government pensions can alter lifetime benefits by tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The book’s witty tone hides a serious warning: Social Security’s rules are a maze. You must play this game shrewdly to win.

The Core Idea: Social Security as Insurance, Not Investment

The authors emphasize that Social Security isn’t simply an investment account—it’s the best old-age insurance available. Taking benefits early, much like cashing in insurance before a disaster, defeats the purpose: protection against living so long that you outlive your savings. The book reframes Social Security as a hedge against longevity risk—a concept echoed by economists like Peter Diamond and Alicia Munnell. Your goal isn’t to “break even” by comparing early versus delayed payouts. It’s to “not go broke.”

Why This Matters

Most retirees assume Social Security is simple: you reach a certain age and collect your check. But the authors reveal a stunning truth: hundreds of claiming combinations exist based on your marital status, earning history, health, and age. And Social Security itself often gives incorrect or incomplete advice. Larry Kotlikoff’s tennis-court revelation—that journalist Paul Solman could earn nearly $50,000 extra through a “file-and-suspend” spousal strategy—illustrates how just one conversation can reframe your financial future.

The Framework of Fairness and Complexity

The Social Security system was born out of fairness—helping widows, low-income workers, and families. Yet its progressive formulas often produce paradoxes. The authors highlight two haunting examples: the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). These rules, created to prevent double-dipping for workers in non-covered jobs, often penalize teachers, police officers, and low-earning public employees. In chasing fairness, the system becomes riddled with unintended inequities.

Why Most People Get It Wrong

Human psychology sabotages retirement planning. Behavioral economists call it “loss aversion”—our fear of waiting and missing out on immediate cash. The authors dissect this phenomenon in “Life’s Biggest Danger Isn’t Dying, It’s Living.” Our rational self wars with our short-term self: the part that fears death more than poverty. The book urges you to side with your long-term “adult” self—the one protecting your future you’s from destitution. Waiting until age 70 can increase benefits by 76%, providing lifelong inflation-protected income.

The Broader Conversation

At its heart, Get What’s Yours is both personal guide and public critique. Kotlikoff and his colleagues expose how bureaucratic opacity erodes trust in government, while offering citizens the tools to fight back through knowledge. In tone, it channels the practical ethos of Charles Ellis (Winning the Loser’s Game) and Richard Thaler (Nudge): systems are flawed, but informed individuals can still prevail. By understanding the rules, you empower yourself—and your family—to win a game millions lose simply because they didn’t know how to play.

In the pages ahead, the book explores seven interwoven themes: the dangers of claiming too early; the “three golden rules” for maximizing lifetime benefits; traps like deeming and windfall penalties; the nuances of marital and divorce advantages; hidden payoffs for disabled or government workers; and overarching reforms to make Social Security sustainable. Each chapter builds toward one promise: if you understand the system, you’ll never again feel powerless facing bureaucracy’s labyrinth. You’ll get what’s yours—and more.

Kotlikoff, Moeller, and Solman distill thousands of obscure rules into three deceptively simple ones—but each is a cornerstone of financial strategy. They call them “rules for survival” in a system that often works against the uninformed.

Rule 1: Patience Pays

Waiting to claim can boost lifetime benefits dramatically. Retire at 62? You’ll receive a 25–30% reduction. Wait until 70? Your payments rise by 76%. This “Delayed Retirement Credit” is tax-free insurance against outliving your savings. The authors liken impatience to buying homeowner’s insurance and canceling it the moment your house catches fire. Patience, they argue, isn’t simply wise—it’s life-saving.

Rule 2: Get All That’s Yours

Social Security isn’t just for you—it can provide spousal, divorce, child, and survivor benefits tied to your record. Millions never realize these “auxiliary benefits” exist because Social Security doesn’t advertise them. Your earnings might entitle your spouse or children to up to 50% of your benefit, or your widow could inherit 100% of your full amount. Failing to claim these can cost your family hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes.

Rule 3: Timing Is Everything

You can’t collect two benefits simultaneously. Choosing when to claim each is the art of optimization. Married or divorced couples must choreograph their claims: one might start early to enable a spousal benefit while the other waits until 70. The case of Edith, a Vermont widow, shows the risk of poor timing. She rushed to collect both survivor and retirement benefits early, wiping out one benefit permanently. Had she waited, she could have received an extra $5,600 a year for life.

Together, these rules transform guesswork into strategy. Social Security may be complex, but its rewards for careful timing, patience, and awareness are unmatched in personal finance.

Why do most Americans grab Social Security early even when it’s irrational? The authors reveal that the biggest danger in retirement isn’t dying—it’s living too long. This idea reframes every decision about when to claim benefits.

Fear of Losing vs. Hope of Gaining

Behavioral economists have shown that people dread losses far more than they value equivalent gains. Social Security’s “break-even analysis”—calculating the age when waiting pays off—feeds this fear. When told they’d “lose” four years of payments by waiting, most claim early. Yet viewed through the lens of longevity insurance, waiting is the winning bet: it protects against poverty at 85 or 95, when savings may be long gone.

Multiple Selves and Decision Fatigue

Borrowing imagery from psychology, the authors describe the human brain as a republic of competing selves. There’s your impulsive self craving immediate rewards, and your rational “life preserver” self thinking decades ahead. The key to maximizing Social Security lies in letting the latter rule. As Larry Kotlikoff quips, “Be the adult in your brain—the one who guards your future self from your current self’s foolishness.”

Waiting Is the Best Longevity Insurance

Using data from actuarial tables, the book shows that a 65-year-old couple has a 50% chance that one spouse will live past 94. By delaying benefits until 70, they secure thousands more per year—for decades. Jeanne Calment, who lived to 122, personifies why patience matters: she would have collected nearly $200,000 extra by waiting. In essence, delayed claiming trades short-term gratification for long-term security—a swap few understand but all can afford if they plan ahead.

Marriage changes everything when it comes to Social Security—especially when it ends. The authors reveal both the sweet rewards and bitter pitfalls tied to marital status.

The Marriage Advantage

After just one year of marriage, your spouse can claim up to half your benefits at full retirement age. After nine months, survivor benefits kick in. And after ten years, you both retain lifelong rights—even after divorce. “Hitched today, gone tomorrow” isn’t just romantic wit; it’s a financial warning. Divorcing at nine years and eleven months could cost tens of thousands in future spousal or survivor benefits.

The Divorced Spouse’s Silver Lining

If divorced after ten years, you can claim on your ex’s record at 62—even if they’ve remarried and you haven’t. The system doesn’t punish exes sharing the same earnings record; both can collect. A divorced widow like “Helen of Eureka” can inherit her late ex-husband’s full benefit, sometimes exceeding her own. Ironically, getting divorced, not staying married, can increase total lifetime payouts for both partners.

Timing and Remarriage Traps

The book highlights the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and deeming traps. Remarry before 60? You forfeit divorced survivor benefits. Remarry after 60? You keep them. The difference of a single day can translate into thousands lost or gained. In this “marital chessboard,” informed timing, not romance, determines financial security.

In short, Social Security rewards patience, punishes haste, and sets quirky milestones that can transform your retirement outcome from bare survival to genuine comfort.

Social Security’s disability programs—SSDI and SSI—form a vast, poorly understood network supporting millions. The authors spotlight advantages most beneficiaries miss and flaws that deserve reform.

Dual Status and Early Entitlement

Disabled workers receive full retirement benefits early—without penalty. A 62-year-old claimant can receive one-third more than a nondisabled worker the same age. When converting to retirement at full retirement age, the payment stays constant. Yet few realize these benefits could be optimized further by “withdrawing” at FRA to accrue delayed credits—creating higher payments later.

The Family Penalty: An Overlooked Inequity

Disabled families face harsh restrictions under Social Security’s Family Maximum Benefit formula. Unlike retired workers, low-earning disabled parents may see child and spousal benefits reduced to zero. The authors call this “heartless math”—a policy that punishes exactly those the system was designed to help. Their case studies of the Jones and Smith families show how small changes in filing tactics or timing could restore thousands in lost benefits.

By navigating disability rules with the same strategic precision as retirement benefits, you can transform what looks like a fixed income into a flexible plan.

One of the book’s most eye-opening chapters exposes two government-created paradoxes: the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). Both were designed for fairness—but often result in confusion and loss.

The Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP)

WEP affects workers who earned pensions from jobs that didn’t pay Social Security tax—teachers, police officers, foreign employees—and also earned covered wages elsewhere. To prevent “double rewards,” Social Security reduces their Primary Insurance Amount formula: the 90% benefit factor shrinks to 40%. The irony? It hits lower earners hardest, reducing small benefits by over half in some cases. WEP’s sliding scale rewards 30 years of covered employment, so working longer can completely erase the penalty.

The Government Pension Offset (GPO)

GPO applies to spousal and survivor benefits. If you receive a non-covered pension, two-thirds of that pension amount is deducted from your Social Security benefits. A retired teacher with a $600 non-covered pension might lose $400 of a $500 spousal payment—receiving only $100. If that pension were from foreign work, the offset might not apply. Timing the start of pensions and Social Security benefits can mitigate these penalties.

Through detailed examples, the authors show how awareness and planning—delaying pensions, increasing covered years, or careful spousal coordination—can turn these rules from traps into manageable trade-offs.

What if you never married—or divorced too soon? Social Security offers lifelines, but only if you understand them. The chapter on single filers reveals overlooked rights, especially around benefit suspension and withdrawals.

Playing the Long Game

Singles have one advantage: freedom from deeming rules that plague couples. If you reach full retirement age and want delayed credits, filing and immediately suspending is a “free insurance policy.” It locks in eligibility while allowing you to restart benefits anytime—or collect a lump sum later. Patricia of Connecticut learned this firsthand after being misinformed by Social Security; by waiting and suspending, her monthly payment rose from $740 to $1,052.

Survivor Tactics

Widows and widowers face the most complex matrix of choices. Survivor benefits can begin as early as age 60 (50 if disabled) and reach 100% of a deceased spouse’s retirement payouts if claimed strategically. But rules like the RIB-LIM (Retirement Insurance Benefit Limit) can sharply reduce payments if the deceased took benefits early. The authors urge strategic sequencing: take the smaller of your two benefits first, then switch at full retirement age. Doing so can multiply lifetime income and protect surviving spouses against destitution.

Singles and survivors embody the book’s thesis: even without marriage or complex filing permutations, mastering Social Security’s timing can yield transformative results.

The final chapters move from personal strategy to national reflection. The authors ask: can Social Security survive its own success? Their debate—between Paul Solman’s optimism and Laurence Kotlikoff’s realism—frames a conversation about America’s future.

Paul’s Pragmatic Optimism

Solman sees complexity as democracy’s cost. Social Security isn’t broken, he argues, just evolving. Like tax law or healthcare, it adjusts through compromise. Reforms such as raising the payroll tax slightly, increasing the cap on taxable earnings, and linking retirement age to longevity could secure the system for 75 years. He believes Americans will adapt, as they did in 1983 under Alan Greenspan’s commission, which rescued the system before.

Larry’s Fiscal Alarm

Kotlikoff counters with stark math: Social Security faces a $23 trillion infinite-horizon shortfall. For him, political procrastination is intergenerational theft. He envisions a “Purple Social Security Plan”—simpler, universal savings replacing bureaucratic redistribution. His passion is moral as much as fiscal: ignorance and complexity betray democracy itself. Americans must confront the truth before passing crushing debt to their grandchildren.

Phil’s Realistic Middle Path

Moeller closes with a grounded view: reform won’t upend tradition. Social Security remains efficient, progressive, and vital. But its sustainability depends on balancing compassion with realism—raising payroll taxes modestly, extending retirement ages, and fixing private 401(k) failures. The program’s future isn’t just arithmetic; it’s empathy for the aging and fairness for younger workers.

This triad—Paul’s faith, Larry’s urgency, Phil’s pragmatism—captures the soul of Get What’s Yours: a battle between hope and accountability. Whether you seek personal benefits or public reform, the message is the same—learn the rules, demand transparency, and guard the promise for generations to come.