Ten Important Ages for Retirement Planning - Eligibility for retirement benefits begins at different ages. Your age also plays a role in what you need to do to avoid retirement account penalties. Here are important ages to factor into your retirement plans:
Age 21. Employees can generally first join a 401(k) plan at age 21. Plan sponsors are allowed to exclude employees younger than 21 from 401(k) plans, and many companies do. A recent IRS survey of 1,200 401(k) plan sponsors found that 64 percent require employees to be at least 21 before they can participate in the 401(k) plan. And 61 percent of companies that offer a 401(k) match require employees to be at least age 21 to qualify. "If you can start saving this early, it can make a tremendous difference because you have the growth in your investments accumulating for more years," says Joe Tomlinson, a certified financial planner and founder of Tomlinson Financial Planning in Greenville, Maine.
Age 50. Beginning at age 50, you can defer paying income tax on more of your retirement savings in a 401(k) or IRA. The contribution limit for 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and the federal government's Thrift Savings Plan is $22,500 for people age 50 and older in 2012, $5,500 more than younger people can deposit in these accounts. Older workers can also tuck away $1,000 more than their younger counterparts in a traditional or Roth IRA.
Age 55. Retirees who leave their job during the calendar year that they turn 55 or later can take 401(k), but not IRA, withdrawals without having to pay the 10 percent early withdrawal penalty. Qualified public safety retirees can begin penalty-free withdrawals if they separate from service the year they turn 50 or later. "If you separate from your employer at 55 or later, you can take a lump-sum payment from your 401(k) and there is not penalty," says Erin Botsford, CEO of The Botsford Group in Frisco, Texas, and author of The Big Retirement Risk: Running Out of Money Before You Run Out of Time. "But you cannot roll that 401(k) into an IRA and take a lump sum out without penalty."
Age 59½. The 10 percent early withdrawal penalty on IRA withdrawals ends at age 59½. However, you are not required to take distributions until after you reach age 70½.
Age 62. Workers become eligible to sign up for Social Security benefits at age 62. However, your payout will be reduced if you begin payments at this age. For example, a baby boomer born in 1950 who signs up at age 62 will get 25 percent less per month that he would have gotten if he had waited until age 66 to claim. A worker eligible for a $1,000 monthly benefit at age 66 would get just $750 monthly at age 62. Also, people this age who work and receive Social Security benefits at the same time could have their payments temporarily withheld if they earn above certain annual limits.
Age 65. Medicare eligibility begins at age 65. The initial enrollment period starts three months before the month you reach age 65 and ends three months after your birthday. It's a good idea to sign up right away because Medicare Part B premiums will increase by 10 percent for each 12-month period you were eligible for benefits but did not enroll. If you or your spouse is covered by a group health plan based on your current employment, you should sign up within eight months of leaving the job or health plan to avoid the higher premiums.
Age 66. Baby boomers born between 1943 and 1954 qualify for the full amount of Social Security they have earned at age 66. For those born between 1955 and 1959, the full retirement age gradually increases from 66 and two months to 66 and 10 months. Once you reach your full retirement age, you will also be able to work and claim Social Security payments at the same time without having any of your payment withheld.
Age 67. The Social Security full retirement age is higher for younger workers. Eligibility for unreduced Social Security payments for workers born in 1960 or later begins at age 67.
Age 70. Social Security payments continue to grow by 8 percent per year for each year you delay claiming up until age 70. "The longer you can postpone it up until age 70, the better, especially if you have longevity in your family," says Botsford. Your spouse could also benefit if you delay claiming Social Security. "If someone waits until age 70, when they pass away, their spouse will be able to continue that higher benefit for the remainder of their life," says Tomlinson. After age 70, there is no additional benefit to delaying Social Security payments.
Age 70½. Withdrawals from 401(k)s and IRAs become required after age 70½. If you don't withdraw the correct amount, you will be required to pay a 50 percent excise tax on the amount that should have been taken out. The first distribution is due by April 1 of the year after you turn 70½. After that, annual withdrawals will be required by December 31 each year. If you delay your first withdrawal until April, you will need to take two distributions in the same year. "If you delay taking that first one, you are bunching up two years' worth of distributions into one tax year and you are going to have to be comfortable with whatever the tax impact of that is going to be," says Gerald Wernette, director of retirement plan services at Rehmann in Farmington Hills, Mich. In some cases, two distributions in the same year could push you into a higher tax bracket. ( usnews.com )
Bleak Prospects for Avoiding Dangerous Global Warming - The bad news just got worse: A new study finds that reining in greenhouse gas emissions in time to avert serious changes to Earth's climate will be at best extremely difficult. Current goals for reducing emissions fall far short of what would be needed to keep warming below dangerous levels, the study suggests. To succeed, we would most likely have to reverse the rise in emissions immediately and follow through with steep reductions through the century. Starting later would be far more expensive and require unproven technology.
Published online today in Nature Climate Change, the new study merges model estimates of how much greenhouse gas society might put into the atmosphere by the end of the century with calculations of how climate might respond to those human emissions. Climate scientist Joeri Rogelj of ETH Zurich and his colleagues combed the published literature for model simulations that keep global warming below 2°C at the lowest cost. They found 193 examples. Modelers running such optimal-cost simulations tried to include every factor that might influence the amount of greenhouse gases society will produce -- including the rate of technological progress in burning fuels efficiently, the amount of fossil fuels available, and the development of renewable fuels. The researchers then fed the full range of emissions from the scenarios into a simple climate model to estimate the odds of avoiding a dangerous warming.
Picturesque and essential. Renewable energy sources and lots of them will be essential in the coming decades if dangerous global warming is to be avoided.
The results suggest challenging times ahead for decision makers hoping to curb the greenhouse. Strategies that are both plausible and likely to succeed call for emissions to peak this decade and start dropping right away. They should be well into decline by 2020 and far less than half of current emissions by 2050. Only three of the 193 scenarios examined would be very likely to keep the warming below the danger level, and all of those require heavy use of energy systems that actually remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. That would require, for example, both creating biofuels and storing the carbon dioxide from their combustion in the ground.
"The alarming thing is very few scenarios give the kind of future we want," says climate scientist Neil Edwards of The Open University in Milton Keynes, U.K. Both he and Rogelj emphasize the uncertainties inherent in the modeling, especially on the social and technological side, but the message seems clear to Edwards: "What we need is at the cutting edge. We need to be as innovative as we can be in every way." And even then, success is far from guaranteed. ( sciencemag.org )
Independent Study Confirms That Global Warming Exists - The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Group was established to provide a robust, open measurement of surface temperatures, in a manner that addresses previous criticisms that temperature trends had been “cherry picked” or that “urban heat islands” provided a false picture of how fast temperatures on the Earth’s surface were rising. The Group is led by Dr. Robert Muller, a physicist who in the past had been notably critical of climate science methodology. The group is funded by a number of different sources, including Bill Gates’ Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.
BEST has now released their data, and determined that their findings are well within the range of previous research. BEST’s findings indicate that in the past 50 years, the average land surface temperature of the Earth has increased about 0.911 degrees Celsius. Moreover, BEST concluded that past research by NOAA, NASA, and other groups were accurate in their estimates of warming.
(Credit: Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature)
This finding, conducted by a noted climate research skeptic and funded by a variety of non-partisan sources, should hopefully end the debate over whether the Earth is warming. All the data points to the same conclusion. It is. I’ve no doubt that this will lead to another set of debates over the extent to which the cause is the result of CO2 and methane emissions, but I’m hopeful they will be much shorter. That CO2 and methane, when introduced to a mixture of gasses, allow for more heat to be trapped is indisputable – you can conduct an experiment on it yourself in your garage for a couple hundred bucks. While climate is certainly an extraordinarily complicated mechanism, the facts keep pointing back to this simple fact of chemistry. Increased CO2 and methane may not be the sole cause of climate change, but it’s definitely a cause and almost certainly a major one.
Now, what next? My Forbes colleague Tim Worstall argues that this is a serious situation, but one in which the human race can make “marginal changes and still survive and thrive.” I agree with him on this – as long as we act quickly. The technology is moving at a rapid pace, and the industries are catching up. Just take solar power, for example – it’s currently one of the fastest growing industries in the United States with total growth of 6.8% from 2010 – 2011. Over 100,000 people are employed in the solar industry domestically, and solar companies plan on hiring about 24,000 people in the coming year. That’s an amazing success story.
We can keep those successes going, and other alternative energy success stories like it, by making some common sense changes to current policies. It doesn’t require a drastic overhaul of the whole system, as long as we start taking the problem seriously now. ( forbes.com )
Is global warming shrinking sea creatures? - Researchers discover a link between warmer oceans and smaller animals — suggesting that climate change could fill the waters with shrimpy creatures
Scientists have long observed that cold-blooded marine animals grow up to be slightly smaller adults when the water they live in is unusually warm. But the reason for this phenomenon, known as the "temperature-size rule," has long eluded scientists — until a recent study offered new insights. A concise guide to the findings:
How was this study conducted?
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, studied marine planktonic copepods — the ocean's primary form of plankton and a source of food for many marine animals. Using more than 40 years of existing data, the team measured two things: The animals' growth rates ("how fast mass is accumulated") and development rates ("how fast the animal passes through life stages").
What did they find?
Warmer water temperatures cause a "decoupling" of growth and development rates in the tiny shrimp-like creatures. Researcher Andrew Hirst explains: In warm water, "a species grows faster but matures even faster still, resulting in them achieving a smaller adult size."
Why should we care about these tiny plankton?
These creatures matter plenty, at least to the oceans' ecosystem. According to Tim Wall of Discover, "Since copepods are food for marine animals, from fish to whales, what happens developmentally to the shrimp-y crustaceans could affect the entire ocean's food web." Smaller plankton means less food to go around at the base of the ocean's food chain.
And what does this have to do with global warming?
Global warming is causing our planet's oceans to get a little hotter every year. And because this "temperature-size rule" affects all cold-blooded marine animals, "as the planet heats up, many animals' sizes may go down," Wall says. ( TheWeek )
Why is King Abdullah willing to let Saudi women vote but not drive cars? - King Abdullah announced on Sunday that Saudi women will be allowed to vote and run for office in municipal elections beginning in 2015. Saudi watchers view the move as a weaker step than allowing women to drive, a right women have been demanding publicly for more than two decades. Why did Saudi women find it easier to get the vote than a driver's license?
Because the right to vote is meaningless. Elections are mostly symbolic in Saudi Arabia. Only half of the seats on the municipal councils are up for election, while the ruling al-Saud family appoints the other half of the members and the mayors. The councils have little power. The government reserves the right to postpone elections, as it did in 2009. There's no guarantee that the 2015 elections, in which women are supposed to participate, will happen on time, or at all. Moreover, King Abdullah's announcement doesn't carry the force of law. He could change his mind at any time. Or, if the 87-year-old king isn't around in 2015, his successor could easily go back on Abdullah's promise to Saudi women.
A Saudi woman
While voting in municipal elections is hardly a move toward true political authority, Saudi conservatives view female driving as the first practical step away from the kingdom's guardian system, which keeps women reliant on men. As things stand, women in Saudi cities can't get around unless they can afford a driver or have a male family member who's willing to chauffeur them. (Young men with many sisters have it tough in the kingdom.) Public buses have separate doors and seating areas for women, but they are slow and unreliable. Some women are afraid to ride in taxis because there have been reports of inappropriate comments by Saudi drivers. (Foreign-born drivers don't have the same reputation, because the Saudi criminal justice system has treated immigrants brutally.)
Allowing women to drive could upset family customs as well. It's difficult for Saudi young people to find a mate without the help of their family. Young men have been known to toss their phone numbers—or even whole cellphones—through the open windows of nearby cars in a desperate attempt to communicate with fetching strangers. Social conservatives fear that, if women were allowed to drive alone, a Western-style dating scene would emerge. Worse still, driving might enable women to organize politically, a tactic that has so far eluded them.
The right to drive would also encourage millions of women who don't currently work to start job-hunting. Over the long run, that would be good for the country's economy. But, right now, there aren't enough jobs for the men. None of this is to say that King Abdullah's announcement is disingenuous. Many Saudi women think he's on their side, but his reformist instincts have been stymied by the conservatives who surround him.
The king, in addition to opening municipal elections to women, announced on Sunday that he would soon appoint women to the Shura council, which, in 2005, discussed the issue of female drivers. They debated whether it was consistent with Islamic law, and even batted around some practical issues. They considered allowing only women over 35 to drive, limiting female drivers to daylight hours, and banning the practice outside of city limits. (In fact, many women already drive in rural areas of the country, where police intervention is rare.) The council even suggested raising a force of female traffic cops, so woman drivers wouldn't have to interact with male officers. Even though the 150-member council is merely advisory, the discussion upset conservatives. When the Shura council considered women's transportation issues in 2011, no one suggested licensing women to drive. The king's move may be an attempt to revive those discussions inside the council. ( slate.com )
More parents lenient about young web use – Despite age restrictions on some social media sites, the number of U.S. parents who would allow children 10-12 years old to have a Facebook or MySpace account has doubled in a year, a new survey showed.
Seventeen percent of U.S. parents questioned in the poll said they had no problem with a pre-teen child using a social media site, compared to just eight percent a year ago.
And 11 percent of parents admitted to using social media sites on behalf of a young child or infant, according to the online survey of about 1,000 adults by Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project.
"More and more parents are allowing their children to have a Facebook account or to have more online activity at younger and younger ages." said Janet Taylor.
The clinical instructor of psychiatry at Columbia University at Hospital in New York described the findings as a sign of the times.
"It's not alarming. I think it means we need to be aware of what is going on and how to best utilize social media," she added in an interview.
Most parents think that children under 18 should not be able to keep their account to themselves and a third monitor their usage. Forty four percent also limit the time spent on the Internet or texting.
Facebook, which has 500 million active users, was the most popular social network among adults in the poll. Nearly 90 percent used it frequently, followed at a very distant second by the professional website LinkedIn with 6 percent, Twitter and MySpace.
Although only three percent of people questioned said they used the microblogging site Twitter frequently, they had definite ideas about what was acceptable and what was not.
Nearly two-thirds thought it was unacceptable for the staff of celebrities and CEOs to ghost-tweet for them and 46 percent didn't think celebrities should use Twitter to argue with each other.
Twenty seven percent also did not agree with CEOs tweeting about their company.
Most Twitter users follow their friends and celebrities and tweet about their daily activities or current events. Only four percent tweeted about politicians or a religious leader, while 11 percent tweeted about their own achievements and 8 percent used it to criticize other people.
When questioned about cyberbullying, most parents said they thought it was their responsibility to resolve the situation if their child was a victim and 63 percent thought teachers and schools should be doing more to stop it. ( Reuters )
New dino in same league as T. rex – Move over Tyrannosaurus rex, there's a new flesh-ripping theropod on the scene that scientists say was probably as big and fearsome as the king of dinosaurs.
The previously unknown predator, unveiled Friday in the journal Cretaceous Research, measured 11 metres (36 feet) from head to tail, stood four metres (13 feet) tall, and weighed in at six tonnes.
Dubbed Zhuchengtyrannus magnus, or "tyrant from Zhucheng," after the spot in China's Shandong Province where it was discovered, the T. rex-like carnivore is among the largest in its family ever found.
"It can be distinguished from other tyrannosourines by a combination of unique features in the skull not seen in any other theropods," said David Hone, a professor at University College Dublin and lead author of the study.
The tyrannosaurines lorded over North America and eastern Asia during the late Cretaceous Period, which lasted from about 99 to 65 million years ago.
The group, which included T. rex, were formidable hunters with small arms, tiny two-fingered hands, and monstrous jaws designed to dispatch prey with deadly, bone-crushing bites.
Palaeontologists only had a partial jaw bone and part of the skull to work with, so it was difficult to gauge the creatures exact size.
"But the bones we have are just a few centimetres smaller than the equivalent ones in the largest T. rex specimen, so there is no doubt that Zhuchengtyrannus was huge," Hone said.
The quarry where the new "tyrant" was found, along with nearby sites, boasts one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur remains anywhere in the world.
Scientists speculate that the area is rich in fossils because it was a flood plain. ( Agence France Presse )
