Podcasts about nick they

SEASON 2: EPISODE 5 Poet Nick Flynn talks about the ways in which he won't die. ABOUT THE GUEST Nick Flynn has worked as a ship’s captain, an electrician, and a caseworker for homeless adults. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and nonfiction have appeared in include the New Yorker, the Nation, the Paris Review, the New York Times Book Review, and NPR’s This American Life. His writing has won awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, PEN, and the Fine Arts Work Center, among other organizations. His film credits include artistic collaborator and “field poet” on Darwin’s Nightmare (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 2006), as well as executive producer and artistic collaborator on Being Flynn, the film version of his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. His most recent collection of poetry, I Will Destroy You, appeared from Graywolf Press in 2019. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Lili Taylor, and his daughter, Maeve. http://www.nickflynn.org/ ABOUT THE HOST Neil Goldberg is an artist in NYC who makes work that The New York Times has described as “tender, moving and sad but also deeply funny.” His work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, he’s a Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches at the Yale School of Art. More information at neilgoldberg.com. ABOUT THE TITLE SHE'S A TALKER was the name of Neil’s first video project. “One night in the early 90s I was combing my roommate’s cat and found myself saying the words ‘She’s a talker.’ I wondered how many other other gay men in NYC might be doing the exact same thing at that very moment. With that, I set out on a project in which I videotaped over 80 gay men in their living room all over NYC, combing their cats and saying ‘She’s a talker.’” A similar spirit of NYC-centric curiosity and absurdity animates the podcast. CREDITS This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund.  Producer: Devon Guinn  Creative Consultants: Aaron Dalton, Molly Donahue  Mixer: Andrew Litton  Visuals and Sounds: Joshua Graver  Theme Song: Jeff Hiller  Website: Itai Almor Media: Justine Lee Interns: Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho Thanks: Jennifer Callahan, Nick Rymer, Sue Simon, Maddy Sinnock TRANSCRIPTION NICK FLYNN: I was driving my daughter to soccer. And she had a bike and I had a bike and we'd ride, even though it was a little cold.  NEIL GOLDBERG: Yeah.  NICK: But a guy went by on a bike and he had like a boombox, one of those boombox that plays, he's playing like a podcast, like really loud, and it was so odd. We both just laughed. It was like, what is that? You're just blasting a podcast going down the street, blasting.  NEIL: This is fresh air.  Hello, I'm Neil Goldberg and this is SHE'S A TALKER. I'm a visual artist and this podcast is my thinly veiled excuse to get some of my favorite New York writers, artists, performers, and beyond into the studio to chat. For prompts, I use a collection of thousands of index cards on which I've been writing thoughts and observations for the past two decades, kind of like one of those party games, but hopefully not as cheesy.  These days, the cards often start as recordings I make into my phone. Here are some recent ones: I really love how Beverly pronounces 'Meow'. It's never appropriate to share scrap paper from home with students. I'm never sure what a simmer is. I'm so happy to have as my guest, poet Nick Flynn. I have been a hardcore fan of Nick's writing since his first book, Some Ether, came out in 2000 and was blown away by his memoirs, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, and The Ticking is the Bomb. In the fall, he released a new book of poetry, I Will Destroy You, and in the next few months he has two more books coming out: Stay, and This is the Night Our House Will Catch on Fire. I met Nick briefly in, I think, the late eighties in Provincetown, and we reconnected recently via our mutual friend, Jacques Servin, who is on an earlier episode. Nick and I spoke in January at a recording studio at The New School near Union Square in New York City. NEIL: Are you comfortable?  NICK: Like on a scale of one to ten?  NEIL: Like, you know those smiley faces, like if you're in the hospital. NICK: How much pain I have? Uh, I hadn't even thought about it till you just said that. Now I'm wondering if I am, so.  NEIL: I feel like I'm, I'm totally not, I'm not feeling any pain at the moment.  NICK: No, I'm not feeling any pain. No, I'm feeling no pain.  NEIL: That's different from, feeling no pain is different from not feeling any pain. NICK: That means if you're kind of fucked up, I think.  NEIL: Exactly.  NICK: You're feeling no pain.  NEIL: Um, I'm so happy to have you, Nick Flynn, on the show, SHE'S A TALKER.  NICK: I'm happy to be here, Neil Goldberg -  NEIL: I, you know -   NICK: on the show SHE'S A TALKER. Is the 'She' the cat? NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: That's, that's who the 'she' is.  NEIL: It is, yeah. I, you know -  NICK: I guess I got that. Yeah.  NEIL: Well, you know, in 1993 when everyone was dying... Everyone is still dying, but just differently.  NICK: I remember that. Yeah.  NEIL: Yeah. Uh, you know, I did a video project where I interviewed, it turned out to be, like about 80 gay men all over New York City in all five boroughs who had female cats, combing their cats and saying "She's a Talker." NICK: They were combing the cats?  NEIL: Combing the cat. It was just almost like, it was like a stealthy way to like, not stealthy, but it was a way to document a lot of gay men who felt like really imperiled, and it was my first video project. And, I don't know, when I decided to name this, that came up for me. But subsequently I get a lot of like, what does the word 'she' mean at this point? NICK: Right, right, right. Yeah.  NEIL: Maybe I should rebrand it. What should I call it?  NICK: Uh, you should stick with it, I think. Hmm.  NEIL: Uh, when, when you're looking for like a short hand, like you encounter someone on the proverbial elevator and are looking for like a pithy way to describe who it is you are and what it is you do, what do you, what do you reach for? NICK: I say I'm a poet.  NEIL: Period.  NICK: Period. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that usually gets a pretty dead-eyed stare like the one you just gave me. Like that's it? That's it.  NEIL: When someone is confronted with poet, silence, do you ever feel like helping someone out?  NICK: Well, it depends on like, often, that'll pretty much be the conversation-ender.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: So it does nothing to help cause they're gone right at that point.  NEIL: If your folks were around, how might they describe who it is you've become? NICK: Wow, that's a, that's an interesting one. Would they, would they still be, are they like idealized, my, like my parents on their best day or on their worst day?  NEIL: Oh, I wouldn't mind hearing both if you don't mind. Like the...  NICK: Ah, like, you know, there's the idealized version of your parents. Then there's the, not the reality, but the, you know, but recognizing at a certain point that they had some rough days, you know. In my mind, it's hard to deny they had some rough days. So, um, it's a little, it's a little harder to pretend. Yeah. Uh, my father, he knew that I'd published books and he was sort of, you know, strangely proud of that. Uh, but proud just in the way he knew I'd be a good writer because he was such a great writer, so I got it all from him. So he took all credit for any of it. So I imagined he would still take credit for any accomplishments I've had or that he perceives I've had. I've, I'm trying to think if he had like on a good day, that's sort of like a not so good day. Yeah. On a good day, he did have a couple moments where he was able to just recognize the struggle it had been, uh, between the two of us, uh, to actually acknowledge that. And I think that would be like, he'd say like, yeah, this was, this must have been hard, you know? So I think that would be. That'd be a good day for him.  My mother's a little more enigmatic, like it's actually, when I think about it, like, cause I mean, she died before he did. I was younger. I didn't know her as well, probably. So, although I grew up with her, but, um, I sort of studied my father more, and my mother's more of a, uh, a construct of the imagination in some ways. Although, I mean, we spent so much time together too. It's strange to say that actually, I don't know if that's true.  You know, I, there's always the question like, what would my mother be like now? So I'm, I look at women that are my mother's age, that would be my mother's age now. Like I don't know how, how she would be. So either way, I think she's, since she, from her backhouse sort of WASP-y Irish background, she probably wouldn't say directly anything. I'd have to decipher what she said.   NEIL: So it would be cryptic in terms of her estimation of you, or?  NICK: I mean, she, I think she'd say, "Oh, I'm, I'm proud of you." But the deeper levels of that I think would be harder to get to.  NEIL: Yeah. I see you came in, you were, you had a bike helmet, which I connect to. Um, on your bike ride over, did you have any thoughts?  NICK: Wow. Thoughts as I was coming here - the sort of meta thing is I was listening on my headphones to SHE'S A TALKER. And you're talking to someone about riding a bike over the bridge.  NEIL: Right, yeah.  NICK: So like, yeah. I mean, at the moment I was riding over the bridge. I was listening to you talk to someone else about riding over the bridge and then thinking that I would soon be here talking to you, and I brought my helmet it, I didn't - usually I lock it on my bike  but maybe I brought it in so you would ask me about it. It's possible, but I think I just brought it in cause it was cold, it was so cold outside. I wanted a warm helmet when I went back out. So.  NEIL: Aha, you didn't want to put on a cold helmet. I never thought about that. NICK: What I thought about on the bridge was that it was way colder than I thought it was. It was the wind, it was like howling and I had a hat in my bag and I kept thinking, I'll just stop and put my hat on under my helmet and I didn't stop. I kept thinking, I'll warm up at some point, but I just kept getting colder and colder the further I went. I just never stopped, I just kept going.  NEIL: Well, let's, um, go to some cards that I curated for you.  NICK: You curate these for this conversation?  NEIL: Yes. Yeah.   (Card flip)  So the first card is: the specific, tentative, hyper-attentive way one tastes something to see if it's gone bad. NICK: Um, what I usually do is I'll, I'll, I'll cook it and then give it to my brother. NEIL: Mikey likes it?  NICK: Yeah. And then if he can get through it then it probably hasn't gone so far bad. Cause he's pretty sensitive actually. I mean, while I'm presenting, it sounds like he'd just eat anything. No. He's quite sensitive. So he's like sort of the. He's, he, he, he's a Canary. Ah ha. Yeah. So I'll just fix it up and give it to him and then, cause he'll, usually, he's quite happy if I make him something, give him some food, then if it's no good, then, then I throw it away. Yeah. If he eats it, I'll eat it.  NEIL: He's your taster. Um, where, where does your brother live?  NICK: He lives upstate, New York.  NEIL: Oh, okay. Yeah, but he's your older brother, right, if I'm remembering? NICK: But why did you say, "but." Because he lives upstate?  NEIL: No, because of the scenario of like, your brother, the implication. He's an implied younger brother in the story.  NICK: Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. He's an implied younger brother in life too.  (Card Flip)  NEIL: Next card. When a toddler falls, that space before they start to cry. NICK: Well. My daughter was, uh, three. And for us, like three was really like, spectacular meltdowns and just like, you know, tantrums and just like wildness, just like absolutely wild, like wild animal, just screaming and frustrated and like, you know, furious. And one day she, uh, she was in a tantrum, she fell and she hit her cheek on the corner of a staircase and it split open and like bled. It sort of woke her up. Like it was right at the end of her being three, she was going to turn four. It was a Sunday night. And my wife and I were like, Oh, what do we do? Like, I'm like, I guess, do we take her to her doctor or do we like, you know, just like, like leave her with a scar for the rest of her life? And so I butterfly-stitched it, you know, like made a little butterfly thing, to hold it together to squish the skin together, you know? And, uh. That's what we did. We sort of looked up t see like how big and deep it had to be to go to a doctor and stuff and to need a stitch, and it was sort of right on the edge. So I butterfly-stitched it, and then. Yeah so now she just has this pretty little scar on her face and she's perfect.  NEIL: Wow. And does she know the story of the scar?  NICK: Oh yeah. I would say it's a part of her myth, part of her origin myth. The wildest, the wildness poured out of her cheek. Yeah. Yeah.  NEIL: Uh, can, can you share -  NICK: Did that answer your question? NEIL: Yes and no. That's always the, um, I think it's beautiful. I have the idea, I'm not a parent, but when I see a kid having a tantrum - NICK: I wasn't either before that.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: It comes on kind of suddenly.  NEIL: But how did you deal with tantrums?  NICK: I, I've been sort of attentive and amused by the whole process. Like I feel like we're really lucky. She's a really good kid and just a really interesting kid and like, so I just sort of like see it, like, I admire the tantrums in a certain way. Like, I think everyone should be like, just screaming, running down the streets, you know, most of the time. Like this sucks. Um, so there was something very, uh, wild about it. Like just to see like, wow, like you can just do this. You can just go and like, you can go to a store and just pull a whole rack down. If you don't get your Popsicle, you don't fucking. She, she used to fire me like every day as a father. She said, if you do not give me that Popsicle, you will not be able to kiss me. You will not be able to hug me. You will not be my father.  NEIL: What did you say to that?  NICK: I'm like, Oh, that's really hard. I'd be sad not to be your father. She was like, you will not be able to, you will have to go to Texas and never come back.  NEIL: Crafty.  NICK: Yeah, she was good. Yeah, but I, you know, I was onto her though. Yeah. I'd be her father like in half an hour later. NEIL: Did you ever say -   NICK: She'd rehire me like half hour later. Yeah.  NEIL: Was there a re-intake process?  NICK: No. No. We just pretended it didn't happen. Yeah, it was all moving forward. It was all the continuous present.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: You just kept this present moment. This present moment had no connection to the other moments whatsoever. NEIL: Did you ever join your daughter in a tantrum?  NICK: Did I ever join her in a tantrum? Oh, wow. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I remember one night, like early on when she was like six months old and that. The beautiful hallucination of early parenthood where you just, you just don't sleep. You just like, you're just awake for like months. Like just not sleeping. And you just fall asleep in the middle of things. Just like, you know, you can just barely do anything. Everything's filthy and like, you know, you just wash all the clothes and immediately they're filthy again, the food is just taken and thrown to the floor. I think the dogs eat it. You just give up in a certain way. There's one night I was up with her at like three in the morning and she was just screaming. And I was just like, I think I filmed her screaming with my phone. I'm just like, okay, just scream. Just scream. I'm going to make a movie of you screaming. I was like, I don't know what to do. So I just made a little movie of her. NEIL: Wow. But you didn't, but, but it didn't call on you the feeling of like, now I am going to lose it myself and cry?  NICK: Um, well, I think I viewed, it's like, you know, I'm from like a sort of WASP-y Irish background, and so we don't really show that stuff. And I'm sort of always like that, but it don't, I don't, I try. I think no one can see it, but I think everyone actually sees it.  NEIL: So always you're, you're crying always. NICK: Melting down, yeah.  (Card Flips)  NEIL: Okay. Kids with artist parents. Because both you and your wife are artists. Like to me, the idea of like, two artists come together and they have a kid, well that's going to be a super kid. And then that kid maybe, will - NICK: Be with another artist, yeah. NEIL: It's almost like an artistic eugenics kind of vision or something.  NICK: Um, yeah. I always think it for our daughter, like Lord help her. Really. I don't think like, Oh, you've been, you've won the lottery. Like, like, this is the card, this is the hand you've been dealt. Good luck with it. You know, we're both like, yeah, we're both a little. I, I don't know, I don't know if neurotic is the right word, but like, you know. You know, we're, we're sensitive. We're like, you know, in some ways not made for this world, we're, we're awkward where other people are comfortable, we're, uh, you know, we found our place to, to survive, which is really lucky, you know? And also, you know, in a culture, like I'm a poet too, I'm not, like, it's not that like, this is like some hugely respected artistic position in our culture at the moment. You know, like, that's why I say that I, I say it perversely if someone asks me, with the elevator pitches, like if they ask me what I do, I say I'm a poet. And just because it's perverse, it's like it's so perverse, you know? You know when, if you go to a doctor's office, I write it on a form. I write 'poet', just, you might as well ride hobo or something. Right? That's not right. I'm a wizard. So it's not like, it doesn't feel like that she's suddenly being dealt like this, like, like a superhuman. Like, what are you talking about?  NEIL: Right. NICK:  It's just unfortunate. Like, you know. Artists get attracted to artists because we can vaguely understand each other, maybe. You know, we're not like, you know, I've tried to be with civilians before and it's like, not easy, you know? I really, I feel less understood, you know? I barely feel like I fit in now. To this world. So you know, you find someone who you feel like, yeah, you also don't feel like you fit in. So that's a kind of connection.  NEIL: How does your, how does your daughter describe what, what you both do? Does she unabashedly say -  NICK: Well, it's a little easier for Lily, for my wife. I mean, cause she's like, you know, people actually will sometimes recognize her on the streets and stuff, so she's a little prouder.  NEIL: But him, the hobo.  NICK: And my dad's a poet.  (Card Flip)  NEIL: Okay. Next card: the fetishization of storytelling.  NICK: Yeah. Right now there's a, there's a whole storytelling thing going on, right? Yeah. There's a whole sense of revival and stuff, and I don't exactly get it. I mean, I, I admire it, like I've gone to The Moth, I've participated in a couple of storytelling things. It's a, it's a strange form for me. It's a strange art form for me, and I admire it when it's done really well. I admire it. The ones I've gone to, that I've been part of, they were, kind of felt a little closer to stand-up, which is another art form too. But I'm like, the line is a little blurry and a little like strange and, and it makes sense that stand-up would be part of it. Cause they are sort of like, like jokes in a way. They're sort of packaged. I mean it's a packaged form. It's like improv is more interesting to me. Like where you don't know where it's going to go. But where, if you know where, I mean, like I say, people that do it well, it's really beautiful.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: It's just not what I do. It's like memoir is not storytelling. Uh, it's another form. And storytelling is like one part of it. You sort of tell the story, but then you sort of have to turn over the story and say like, why am I telling this story? Like what am I trying to present in telling this story, ignores all these other realities that are happening or all these other things I don't want you to know. People will come up and say like, you know, how's it feel to like, have that people know so much about you now? Like, well, you only know what I want you to know. You're gonna get some glimpse from a book.  NEIL: Right. Yeah.  NICK: From storytelling, I don't know even what glimpse you get, you get a glimpse of how they tell a story I guess. I want to know about other people. I want to know like what their, the interior life is of other people, what the landscape is. Which is why I like read... Or, why I, why I do anything. Like go see art. Or just to sort of like have that, so you're not so, so you recognize it's not all, all ego, you know? It's not all, like everything isn't sort of springing forth from within me. You know?  NEIL: Right. I'm not interested in other people's stories generally.  NICK: Yeah.  NEIL: Specifically too. I'm not interested in other people's stories, but I'm interested in hearing people think, which is what this podcast is about. So like the way their thought processes reveal themselves. That interests me. I don't know, but I'm, I'm, I'm not interested in the content. NICK: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand. Yeah. I teach creative writing and often it's like, I'm much more interested in like, the stuff around the content. It's not about the content, like it's more about the stuff around like how you're like, like, you know, how this one thing transformed something else or how you chose to make this weird sentence, or how like these things that have sort of moments of excitement. The story itself can be rather deadening.  NEIL: Right.  NICK: Yeah. Because, I think because it's somewhat packaged too, it is a lot of times, yeah.  NEIL: But I also, the thing I really resist is this, like: "We're about stories." You know, like the, this fetishization of storytelling has creeped into like how, how stories are talked about. It's like, we bring you stories da da da, stories. It's like, it feels infantilizing too.  NICK: Well, you know, I was just talking about this with one of my, some of my students, uh. You know, the, what's the most famous Joan Didion line? "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."  NEIL: Right, right.  NICK: And, yet, The White Album goes on. That's the first line of The White Album. That'll probably be on her tombstone. Uh, you know, they make bookmarks of it in bookstores, and yet if you actually read The White Album, that essay, she totally just doesn't believe it and contradicts it and says like, why? Like this makes no sense at all. And like that this is, I thought I could do this. Like I was, I was desperately trying to create a story that would protect me from something and it, none of it worked. And it just dissolves, the whole thing just all is like, so to take that one line out of context and say, this is actually a truism is so strange. It doesn't make any sense at all. And there's a  thing, my therapist came up with this thing of the, I don't know if he came up with it, but we talk about my, one of my disorders, uh, one of my many disorders is a narrative affect disorder where I'll create like stories like, but you know, it's not stories like you're talking about, it's creating books and creating like versions of what happened, um, in order to contain it and to be able to hold onto it in a way that seems safe, so I don't have to feel the actual emotional intensity of it.  NEIL: Right.  NICK: Um, and I think it's, it is a type of illness. I think storytelling is a type of illness, uh, that keeps you from actually feeling.  (Card Flips)   NEIL: Next card: often when I leave the apartment, I think, is this how I'd like it to be found if I die today? NICK: I think that one's more about you than me. I think. Um.  NEIL: You don't think that when you leave?  NICK: Well, I don't think I'm ever going to die. I'm pretty sure. NEIL: Do you really believe that?  NICK: Yeah. Like I, yeah, no. I have a thing where like, I'm, I'm, there's, well, I just know the ways I'm not going to die.  NEIL: Okay. Let's hear it.  NICK: I'm not going to die in an airplane crash. I'm not going to die by getting eaten by a shark. Might die by getting hit by a car on a bicycle. I mean I might, so I have to be careful.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: But I can swim for miles in the ocean filled with sharks. I'm fine. Yesterday I was on a plane coming from Houston and, uh, it was just like, like being on a ship in the middle of a, of a nor'easter. Like it was just wild, you know, like it really, like it was almost spinning. Yeah. I was fine. I'm like, Oh, this is cool cause I'm not gonna die in a plane. Like, you know, so I just have these sorts of things. They might be, you know, just delusional. You know, I mean, how could I possibly know? But I'm almost positive I'm not going to get eaten by a shark. NEIL: Uh huh.  NICK: Which really, which really helps in Provincetown. Cause there's a lot of sharks there now and a lot of people don't swim in the water. And I'm like, ask yourself, are you going to get eaten by a shark? Do you really think that's the way you're gonna die? And most people would say no. I mean, wouldn't you say no? Like no. If you know, on a rational day, like that'd be really, and if you did, that'd be so cool. Like how many people, how many poets get eaten by a shark? That'd be so excellent, right? Like it's a win-win. I have a poet, there's a poet, Craig Arnold, a really great poet that died a couple of years ago. He was writing a whole series of poems on volcanoes. Traveling the world, like got a grant to travel the world and look at volcanoes. He's just gone. He just vanished one day. He vanished. We think he fell into a volcano and died. Like, that's like an amazing story. Like it's terrible, terrible, awful. But I mean, there are a lot worse ways to die than falling into a volcano.  NEIL: Oh my God. How would you feel about being bitten by a shark and surviving it?  NICK: That's cool. That woman, that, that surfer that only has one arm, she's cool.  NEIL: You'd be okay with that?  NICK: If I could surf like her.  (Card Flips)  NEIL: Um.  NICK: I really killed this bottle of Perrier.  NEIL: Oh, awesome. I love it. Um, good job. Uh: the ambiguity of "It's downhill from here."  NICK: Oh. The whole idea of like, you know. There's a few things. Yeah. The opposite is all uphill from here, right. It's all, so downhill sounds pretty good, right? But it suggests like we're sliding into the grave, I think. NEIL: Yes.  NICK: Like it's all like we've reached the peak.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: That was the peak. It was really hard to get to the peak. And as soon as you get to the peak, you start going downhill. Yeah. You know? Uh, and, uh. Yeah, I often joke, yeah, I'm on the other side of the, on the other side, now, you know, that you somehow that the, the, the greatest work and the greatest, uh, notoriety so that was a while ago. Um, and.  NEIL: But also maybe the greatest struggle, no?  NICK: Was a while ago.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: Yeah. Oh, I dunno. But I, I joke about it. I just, I don't really believe that. The most recent project I'm doing just feels completely, uh, uh, fulfills me. You know, I'd have this other book coming out, this book, Stay, coming out, which I'm, I worked on a lot last year and I'm happy with that. And another book coming out after that. So there's like, you know, I don't really worry about it, but it's, it's almost a thing. It might be sort of Irish too, like just so you don't want to sort of, uh, be too full of yourself. You know, you want to like sort of be somewhat, you don't want to show how many fish you caught that day cause then you have to give half away. So you sort of downplay it. You downplay it. So the downhill side is where we sort of live. We live on the downhill side. I don't know, it's a strange metaphor.  NEIL: It's, it's ambiguous. NICK: Yeah, it's a strange metaphor.  NEIL: But I'm also thinking it's a paradox, too, and, as you talked, because take the downhill part. Um, it does get easier.  NICK: Yeah.  NEIL: I think, I mean, my life, I will say, and anything could change at any moment, has gotten so much easier, you know, now that I'm clearly on the other side. NICK: Psychic.  NEIL: Yeah.  NICK: Psychically. Yeah.  NEIL: For sure.  NICK: Yeah. Yeah.  NEIL: Um, yeah. It's also, I am sliding into the grave. Yeah. I mean, hopefully it's a long slide, but...  NICK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mortality. The cold wind of mortality does start to, you start to feel it. At a certain point.  NEIL: In your back.  NICK: Yeah. You started, you know, it's blown in your face. Yeah. It's like, it's like you feel it, which I, you sort of thought you felt it in your 20's but you really, you could have, I mean, we know a lot of people that died in their 20's, sure. It was not like this. This is like the real thing. Yeah. This is like, yeah. There's no, like, there's no choice in the matter. So like, yeah, maybe I'll just overdose or something, you know, or, or, you know, or I'll just be reckless and didn't die. Now it's like, yeah, no matter what I do, doesn't matter what I do, I can, I can eat kale, I can eat kale the rest of my life.  NEIL: Yeah. I don't have to coax the process and it's still going to happen. NICK: Yeah.   (Card Flips)  NEIL: The existential space of the clipboard. NICK: Well, I mean, clipboard, I think when you say clipboard, I was thinking of just like first of a blank clipboard, but then I was also thinking of the thing you put clippings on, that you put other things on, combine things together.  NEIL: I'm thinking of the clipboard, the computer clipboard. Like when you cut something. That space.  NICK: Well, what do, what is it? What is that on the computer?  NEIL: The clipboard. NICK: Yeah. What is that? I'm not sure what it, what do you mean? You cut and paste stuff? Or... NEIL: Anytime you, surely you do Command X and Command C, right?  NICK: You mean like copy things and then cut things? Yeah. Yeah. Cut. Yeah.  NEIL: So when you copy something -  NICK: And Command V.  NEIL: Oh yeah.  NICK: Yeah, yeah. Can't forget Command V.  NEIL: Absolutely. When you do Command C - NICK: Yeah. That copies it.  NEIL: Into the clipboard. And then that command, do Command V - NICK: It takes it off the clipboard.  NEIL: Yeah. Well, it stays in the clipboard, but it also pastes the inside.  NICK: See I don't think, I never knew that. Yeah. I never would've thought of that.  NEIL: I'm acutely aware of the clipboard. NICK: I never thought where it went. Oh. Oh. Well, this is a tough question cause I've never really thought of this before. So, uh, existential, I mean, that's kind of heavy to suggest it has to do with life or death. Um, uh.  NEIL: You don't think about your text in that kind of liminal state between when you cut it and when you've pasted it? NICK: I figured it just, it goes away. Like it doesn't, like if I, if I cut something else, then that replaces the thing I cut before, or if I copy something else, replaces the thing. So I just assume there's not a clipboard holding all of them.  NEIL: No, it isn't. That's part of the existential condition.  NICK: Cause it just vanishes once you put something else on top, once you copy something else.  NEIL: Yeah. It's fragile.  NICK: Yeah. I make a lot of copies. I try to, I try to like, save things as much as possible and like, yeah, like I'm, and print things up. I, I prefer to write by hand first. Uh, really. Um, and then to print it and then to write by hand on the thing I've printed and then to keep going back and forth like that. I like writing by hand. There's a, there's a young poet, um, who created an app called 'Midst.' It's hard to say midst, like in, you're in the midst of something. Yeah. I don't know how to - midst. M. I. D. S. T. It's very hard to say for me.  NEIL: Yeah. Me too.  NICK: Can you say it?  NEIL: Uh, yeah. I feel like it's going to intersect with my sibilant A-S. Let's try it. Midst.  NICK: Yeah. Oh, you do feel very well.  NEIL: But a little gay, right?  NICK: I didn't, I didn't say that. I raised one eyebrow, but I did not say it.  NEIL: When straight men raise one eyebrow, it somehow doesn't look gay. Midst. Midst. What's Midst?  NICK: Well, it's a, it's a program that she did where you can, where you write a poem, I guess you write anything, but it sort of keeps track of all the cutting and pasting you do and the, the process of making it. So you ended up, you send her like a final poem, but then she can press a button and can see all the stuff you did to make it. Um, so I have to try it though, but I usually, I really usually write by hand first and she's like, no, you have to write it on the, you have to compose the whole thing on the thing. I'm like, okay, so I just haven't quite done it yet, but I'm, yeah, I'm planning on it though.  NEIL: But this is basically, this isn't a useful tool. This is a tool to create a kind of -  NICK: To create a thing. She'll publish like a magazine that shows, like you look at a poem and then you press a button and it all sort of like, maybe it goes in reverse and dissolves back to the first word or something.  NEIL: Yeah. I just am not into those kinds of things. I feel like there's a lot of that peripheral to the art world. These things that kind of like perform a process or reveal a process. I'm just not into that. You know what I'm saying? NICK: No, but that's okay. I mean, I try, I believe that you are not into it. I'm just like, process is nice. Like I love, I love, I love seeing the process. I love seeing, don't you love like, like thinking like Michelangelo's slaves, you know, on the way to the David, right?  NEIL: Oh yeah.  NICK: We get to see the slaves like coming out of the block of marble and everyone says that they were like incomplete.  NEIL: Yes.  NICK: Yeah. We just said, which is such bullshit. Like if you think about it, like what, he did twelve incomplete at the same stage, like they're half out of the block just, Oh, I'm just gonna stop them all here.  NEIL: Right?  NICK: Like, it makes no sense at all. Like you couldn't finish one of them? NEIL: Right. NICK: Like he clearly saw that it looked cool for slaves who were pulling themselves out of what they're stuck in. And that, I find it so much more interesting than David, which is complete and perfect. I think, I think that's the meta thing where it's like all about process. That's like the process right there.  NEIL: Huh.  NICK: Yeah. So I try to think about that. That was just sort of a highfalutin way to counter your anti-process.  NEIL: Doesn't feel highfalutin. I think my thing was like faux highfalutin.  (Card Flips)  What keeps you going?  NICK: Um. Uh, just wondering what's gonna happen next. Yeah. Yeah. NEIL: Poet. On that note, thank you, Nick Flynn, for being on SHE'S A TALKER. NICK: Thank you, Neil. NEIL: That was my conversation with Nick Flynn. Thank you for listening.  Before we get to the credits, there were some listener responses to cards that I'd love to share. In my conversation with artist Tony Bluestone, we talked about the card: That moment when you forget what you should be worrying about and try to reclaim it. In response to that card, Jamie Wolf wrote, "A single brussel sprout rolled under the stove, and I wasn't gonna let Shavasana get in the way of my at least remembering to retrieve it." John Kensal responded with what I think is a haiku: Please sit or flee, my wee and quiet executive function disorder. Another card Tony and I talked about was: Fog is queer weather, to which Jonathan Taylor wrote, "To me, fog is transgressive because it's like a cloud. So it's either you or it is not where it's supposed to be."  Thanks to everyone who wrote in. If you have something you'd like to share about a card on the podcast, email us or send us a voice memo at shesatalker@gmail.com or message us on Instagram at shesatalker. And also, as always, we'd love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or share this episode with a friend. This series is made possible with generous support from Stillpoint Fund. Devin Guinn produced this episode. Molly Donahue and Aaron Dalton are our consulting producers. Justine Lee handles social media. Our interns are Alara Degirmenci, Jonathan Jalbert, Jesse Kimotho, and Rachel Wang. Our card flip beats come from Josh Graver. And my husband, Jeff Hiller, sings the theme song you're about to hear. Thanks to all of them, and to my guest, Nick Flynn, and to you for listening. JEFF HILLER: She's a talker with Neil Goldberg. She's a talker with fabulous guests. She's a talker, it's better than it sounds, yeah!

Today's show is part 4 of our social security discussion. Our topic today is spousal benefit options. John and Nick will walk us through the ins and outs of this facet of social security and offer their advice.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.comTranscript of Today's Show:----more----Mark: Hey everybody, welcome into another edition of Retirement Planning Redefined. Thanks as always for checking out and tuning into the podcast with John and Nick, financial advisors at PFG Private wealth. Gents, what's going on? John, I'll start with you. How are you buddy?John: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How are you doing Mark?Mark: I'm hanging in there. How's the little one's doing? I know they, you had some cold running through the house. Everybody getting better?John: They're getting much better, which is good. No more getting coughed in my face a lot less this week, so yeah, that's a good thing.Mark: And Nick, how are you my friend?Nick: Good, good. Looking forward to the holidays coming up here and all kinds of good food.Mark: Oh yeah, yeah. Are you a Thanksgiving kind of guy?Nick: I have become more so after my brother started deep frying turkeys a couple of years ago.Mark: Okay, good. So no YouTube videos of that now, so just be careful. We don't want to see any flying turkeys.Nick: He's got it all under control.Mark: Fantastic. Awesome. Yeah. At the time of this podcast taping it is just about Thanksgiving. It's just about here on us. And so we're going to continue on with our a multi-part series we've been doing about Social Security. So hopefully you've been checking these out and if you have, great, if you have not, make sure you go to the podcast page, you can find it on their website at pfgprivatewealth.com that's P F G private wealth.com and you'll find the podcast page. You can subscribe to it on Apple or Google or Spotify. I think there's other couple of choices there as well.Mark: So make sure you do, a lot of good content that we're discussing. This is a multi-part series all around Social Security and part four here is going to be on Social Security, spousal benefits, not deep frying turkeys that'll come another day, but a Social Security spousal benefits. So guys, let's get into this and just kind of break down some information for us on, I guess, what we're entitled to or how this whole thing kind of works.Nick: Sure. So just kind of a recap on, you know, how eligibility wears for Social Security. Essentially somebody needs to work, you know, for 40 quarters, pay payroll taxes for those 40 quarters and they become eligible for their own benefit. However, you know, one of the common questions that we may get is one spouse stayed at home, one spouse worked. The spouse that stayed at home didn't get their 40 quarters. And they want to know are they eligible for any sort of benefit.Nick: So it's important to understand that, you know, as long as the couple is married, the person that has not qualified for the benefit is eligible for a spousal benefit. And that spousal benefit is essentially calculated by looking at the full retirement amount benefit for the spouse that was working and multiplying by 50%. So, that's the starting line. That's kind of how you understand how they calculate that. And the reason that they did create that was understanding that households, you know, it's not always cut and dry from the standpoint of one spouse is working. There's obviously value to the other spouse staying home, helping to raise a family and they want to protect that spouse in situations like divorce or other sorts of scenarios by providing them with this kind of caveat for how the benefits work.Mark: Okay. And yeah, so the simple way to break it down. So give us some more, John, give us some more things to think about here when we're talking about the eligibility of spouses, maybe some rules, things of that nature.John: Yeah. So basically, some of the rules before you can collect a spousal benefit, the primary worker must have filed. So wait until the spouse actually draws and then you can go ahead and take your spousal benefit. Spouses can actually start taking it at age 62, that's the soonest that you can start taking.Nick: So a kind of a good example of that is, so let's say, Mr. Smith has been the worker and Mrs. Smith stayed at home with the family and raised a family. And a couple of years ago, two years ago, she started working, you know, so she's not eligible for her own benefit. So Mr. Smith is going to continue to work and Mrs. Smith is trying to figure out, "Hey, I'm also 62, can I file for benefits?" So the answer is not until Mr. Smith essentially retires and fights for his benefit. So that's where the restrictions on the ages kind of come to play.Nick: And when John referred to that primary worker must filed for their benefits, there used to be some other rules in play where you can kind of navigate around, but they really cut down and things are a lot more restricted than they used to be.John: Yeah. And just to kind of give some numbers to that, let's say Mr Smith's full retirement benefit was 2,400, Mrs Smith's spousal benefit would be, as Nick mentioned, 50% of that sort of 1200. And again, so her spousal benefit is based off of his full retirement amount benefit and not what he actually gets. So example of that would be, you know, when she goes to draw, let's say if he'd started taking early and he get his full 2,400, she's not penalize by that. Her 50% is still the 1200, assuming she draws at her full retirement age.John: If she decides to take early at 62 she will actually have a reduction of her spousal benefit.Nick: It is important for people to understand that, you know, there's the dates on when people start to receive the benefits are calculated, or factored in I should say, for each person. Though it factored in potentially when Mr. Smith files and starts collecting and it's also factored in when Mrs. Smith files and starts collecting. And so there's a lot of different variations on how that works. And because there are some different variations, we typically recommend to people that, you know, I was helping you kind of walk through the different, let's test out different scenarios and figure which one makes the most sense because there are so many factors that go into the decision.Nick: We understand a lot of people like to just, you know, they want a cut and dry answer and unfortunately or fortunately, the positive to there not being a cut and dry answer is that, you know, oftentimes they can be strategic and find something that works better for them and if it were cut and dry. But it does take a factoring in a lot of other things to make the right decision.John: Yeah. At first the answers to certain questions are, it depends.Mark: Yeah, that's the case a lot of times I think.John: One question we actually get a lot and we talked about in the last sessions was, you know, if you draw Social Security after full retirement age, you actually get a percent increase in your benefit. That does not work for spousal benefits. So if the spouse didn't want to take or they want to defer their spousal benefit, they do not get the 8% increase on it.Nick: Yeah. So, we have seen that mistake happen, you know, the primary person has decided, "Hey, let's wait to collect the benefit" because they are under the assumption that not only will their benefit grow by 8%, but the spousal benefit that their spouse will take will grow, but that's not the case. Only their benefit grows, the spousal benefit does not. So when we run kind of break even calculations, it can often makes sense to just have them start collecting so that they can get both of them.John: Yeah. And then, you know, it's important understand also for to be eligible for spousal benefits, you have to be married at least one year. So can't be a just getting married and after six months started drawing on Social Security for a spouse.Mark: They're not going to just make it too easy for you anyway. All right, so that's some good rules. That's some good basic information there. What are some strategies? Give us a few things to think about when it comes to the spousal benefit options.John: Yeah. And like we said, everyone's situation is different. It really depends and it's important to customize what works for you. And I think we offered in the last session, but if anyone wants it, we actually are working on a Social Security machination strategy, which we're happy to do so. But one thing that we'll do with some spousal strategies, depending on the situation, we might have one spouse claim early and the other spouse, depending on the situation, you know example of that would be, let's say we have a high earner and they want to protect the spouse in case of a premature death. So we might go ahead and have the high earner, who's Social Security benefit is higher, actually delay theirs. So, if they were to pass away prematurely, that spouse can actually jump onto a higher amount, high Social Security benefit, which is nice strategy to protect the surviving spouse.John: I've used that a couple of times when there's an age gap on the spouses or if I'm there, you know, sometimes clients will come in and they're just concerned saying, "Hey, I'm really concerned something could happen to me. Is my spouse going to be okay?" We'll go ahead and implement some strategies like that.Nick: Another time where that can be used is if the primary earner has worked at in an occupation where they're eligible for a pension and they're going to receive a pension and they, you know, kind of through planning or whatever it may be. Or like the example of John mentioned where on of the spouses is maybe quite a bit younger, so when the other spouse is quite a bit younger, it pulls down the pension amount that the primary person would receive. So to offset that a little bit, we might recommend, "Well, hey, instead of doing a hundred percent survivor benefit on the pension, let's do a 50% so that you can have a higher pay out. But to offset that, what we'll do is we'll have you wait to take Social Security until 70." So the pension amount that the spouse would receive would be less, but we can offset that waiting on Social Security a little bit and still have more income coming in the household.Mark: Gotcha. Okay. All right. So a couple of different strategies there to consider and I think a lot of times people sometimes don't plan ahead for that part. It's like we're sitting there talking about different, when you're getting your retirement plan done, I think sometimes we look at it overall and say, "Well, we want to turn Social Security on as soon as we can and yada, yada yada." Instead of saying, "Okay, how can we most maximize our Social Security for both of us in an overall inclusive retirement plan?"Mark: So it's certainly important to do. And as John mentioned, you know, they can run that Social Security maximization if you have some questions on that. If you want to get that done or have a chat with them, give them a call at (813) 286-7776 that's (813) 286-7776 and you can also check them out online at pfgprivatewealth.com.Mark: As I mentioned before, there are financial advisors here in the Tampa Bay area, so if you have some questions about that, again, as always when you're listening to this show or any other show before you take any action, always check with a qualified professional about your specific situation because everybody's, it can be so different, so make sure you have that chat.Mark: All right guys, I think in the interest of time we can probably squeeze in a couple more things. Can you give us a few things to think about on divorced spousal situations?John: Yeah, so it is important for people to understand that they are still eligible for a spousal benefit if they were married for 10 years and they are not remarried. So a scenario that we may see with that is they were previously married to a high earner, maybe they worked a lower paying job, they were married for 25 years, became divorced, they went back to work to cover expenses, et cetera. They may be in a relationship currently, but they're not officially married and we kind of go through calculations and we determined that, "Hey, the spousal benefit that you could receive from you former spouse would be higher than the benefit that you would receive on your own and or higher than the benefit that you would receive if you were to marry your current partner." And obviously a lot of other factors go into that.John: But, from a purely financial decision, that could work out really well because again, you cannot collect that spousal benefit from a former spouse if you are remarried. We have had questions along the lines of, you know, "Hey, I was married twice. Both were over 10 years. Am I restricted to choose just the most recent one?" And the answer is no, you can pick the higher. We had a nice young lady one time that had four different ten year marriages and she asked if she could add them all up together and unfortunately you can't, it's just the higher.Nick: But she had a lot of options.John: Yeah. It's good to have options.Mark: Like window shopping apparently.John: So, yeah. So those are a couple of things to keep in mind.Nick: Yeah. And one question we get a lot with divorced clients, they say, "How soon can I draw on the ex-spouse's Social Security?" And really you can draw on an ex-spouse once that ex-spouse hits age 62. Unlike a kind of a normal situation, when we wait until the spouse draws Social Security. They put this rule in really to protect the ex spouse because we've seen scenarios where certain people might delay drawing to intentionally hurt the other spouse and so they can't draw on them. So basically the rule is once the ex-spouse hits over 62, you can actually start drawing on the spousal benefits for divorcees.John: Yeah. It does not matter whether or not they're collecting. And also some people are happy about this, some people are not. But when you do get that benefit from a former spouse, again it does not affect their own benefit. There is no negative impact to doing that to them.Mark: They don't even know about it.Nick: They would have no idea. And it actually wouldn't affect any new spouse for somebody. So we get that question quite a bit where it says, "Hey, an ex-spouse draws on my Social Security. Does that affect my new wife or husband?" The answer is no.Mark: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And there's interesting on the time period on that, it's funny that you kind of brought that up. My mother, who's 78, actually was given that information and did a refile with the Social Security for her first husband. She was married twice as well. And so yes, she was able to do that and they hadn't been married in like 40 years, but they were married over 10 years. So they were like, "Yep, that's something you can do." So I was like, "Okay, well knock yourself out."Mark: So yeah, it's interesting. There's definitely some few things to consider in there. Different kinds of a spousal benefit options, divorce spousal benefit options. So again, a lot of it comes down to having a conversation about your specific situation with your advisor when it comes to Social Security, because there are a lot of things in Social Security obviously, which is why we're on a four part series, going to be a five part series actually around this.Mark: So with that said, I think we're going to depart this week on the program. I'll say John and Nick, thanks for your time. As always, we appreciate it. Folks, make sure you reach out to them, give them a call if you've got some questions at (813) 286-7776. (813) 286-7776, again, that number to call. And as always, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Retirement Planning Redefined. You can find it on Apple, Google or Spotify.Mark: You can also just find it on their website at pfgprivatewealth.com and as I said at the beginning of this, that it was prior to Thanksgiving when we were taping this. Now we'll actually air it after Thanksgiving. So we certainly hope that everybody had a great holiday season. And we'll see you for more of our conversation around Social Security through the month of December, right here on Retirement Planning Redefined. For John, for Nick, we'll see you next time.

Today is the start of a multiple part series on social security. We'll be discussing topics such as the state of the fund and reforms that are aimed to help the program and more, so tune in and catch up on social security.Helpful Information:PFG Website: https://www.pfgprivatewealth.com/Contact: 813-286-7776Email: info@pfgprivatewealth.com----more----Transcript of today's show:Mark: Hey gang, welcome into another edition of retirement planning redefined with the boys from PFG Private Wealth Financial Advisors, John and Nick, once again here on the program with me as we talk about investing, finance and retirement. Always go to the website and check them out at pfgprivatewealth.com that is pfgprivatewealth.com. While you're there, subscribe to the podcast. Give us a like and check us out and all that good stuff. Subscribe to it for past episodes as well as future episodes. And of course anytime you hear anything, you've got a question or concern, give them a call before you take any action. 813-286-7776 is the number to call. If you hear a useful nugget of information and you want to learn more, again, reach out to them at (813)-286-7776. Guys, I hope you're doing well this week. Nick, what's going on man?Nick: Yeah, we're doing well. Staying busy for sure. Today what we wanted to do is kick off a multi session on social security.Mark: Okay. Cool.Nick: And we just want to let everybody know. We know that some of the people that'll be listening to this will have become familiar with us through either the more comprehensive classes that we put on around town or via a financial wellness workshop. And social security has been one of the hot topics for a long time and it continues to be as it is more in the news with the different pressures and some of the funding issues and those sorts of things. And then obviously with everybody, so many people and so many baby boomers getting closer to retirement, although we will be getting into it fairly comprehensively in this session, we just wanted to make sure that everybody knew that if they were interested in having us come in, whether it's some sort of association or an employer based kind of program, we like to do the lunch and learns or some sort of financial wellness workshop.Nick: And we've got about a 50 minute session that we'll do on social security. And from the feedback that we've gotten, it's been one of the most positively embraced sessions that we've done. So we just want to let people know that if they wanted a more comprehensive overview on this or they thought it might be beneficial for their employer or fellow employees or coworkers, that that's something that's available.Mark: Awesome. Yeah. When we get into that we'll have this multi-part series on the podcast regarding social security. And again, as Nick mentioned, if you want to talk with them, (813)-286-7776, (813)-286-7776.Mark: John, how are you man? You doing all right?John: I'm doing great. How are you doing?Mark: I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking. And you know, Nick got us all set up there for the conversation. So what do you say we dive into it? How does it work? I mean, what's the crux of the whole social security situation here we're looking at?Nick: Most people are obviously familiar with the fact that they are eligible for social security and they pay into the system, but not a lot of people are familiar with how it all works and ties together. We always like to start off in explaining people how the program is funded. A lot of people have seen on their pay stub where it might say FICA and they're not really quite sure what that is. But out of that 7.62 that comes out of your paycheck for those FICA tax is 6.2% of that is for social security. And one of the things that we have found over the years is that many people are not familiar with the fact that the employer also pays in 6.2%. Some people have this idea that the program is fully funded by the government and really it's fully funded by them and their employer.Nick: Letting them know that about 12.5% of their income each year is going into the program towards them is something that is important for them to understand. And for some of the higher income earners, they may have noticed at a certain point of the year that their paycheck gets a little bit bigger. And usually that's because payroll tax is capped, so people no longer pay in on earnings over ... In 2019 on earnings over $132,900. And as we talk a little bit about some of the things that'll change over time with the program, one of the things that's in the news the most is that cap and removing that cap so that it's similar to Medicare where people will pay on, no matter what their earnings are, they will continue to pay into the system.John: That cap's actually been going up aggressively. You know, I think a few years ago it was $112 Nick, and I think now they've jumped it up to one $132.Nick: Yeah, yeah. They've definitely been indexing it up faster than inflation, that's for sure.Mark: Yeah. And depending on what happens in the elections coming up next year, you know, depending on who gets in, there's conversations that that 6.2 could be raised as well. So if you're still working, so that could go up substantially as well.Mark: How much can somebody expect guys? I imagine that's a big question that always comes up is, what are we looking at? I know you can get your estimates, obviously, from the website. They don't even send those little papers out anymore I don't think. They used to send them out every year, then it went to every five years. I'm not sure if they even still do that.John: They do occasionally, and I'm not sure the exact how often, but I know that from our classes we're starting to have guests say, yeah they're getting the statements. But it's based off of your earnings record. And one thing that's important to understand, it's actually your highest 35 years. So a lot of people when I first started working, I think the first year I was 18 I made like $12,000.Mark: That's pretty good for 18.John: You're [crosstalk 00:05:20]. Yeah, exactly. Your highest earning years are really later in life, once you hit your 50s and 60s. So that's important to understand if someone's thinking about retiring early to make sure that they look on the statement and see, Hey, what years do I have that are significant in here? Because if I stop working my last seven years, you know the benefit that I'm seeing on my statement's actually going to be less.John: Because when you get your statement, what it shows if you continue to work up until that age, not if you stopped. So that's important. Another thing we tell our clients and anyone that comes to our classes is to make sure that you look at it, see if there's any zeros in there. Because if you do have zeros in your highest 35 that will actually bring down your benefit and that's something you may want to consider maybe working a couple of extra years to make sure that you maximize your social security retirement benefit as best you can.John: And you're right, you can go on social security.gov and pull up your statement. They'll ask you a lot of funny questions. What was the color of your first car? Most likely most people get locked out unfortunately, but it's good to go check it out if you haven't done that in awhile.Nick: Yeah. Another thing to just make sure that people know from the standpoint of those highest 35 years is that's in relation to the cap. And so you know that cap that we mentioned earlier, that $132,900, it's in relation to that. Just because there may have been a period of time, we've seen it in some circumstances, where maybe somebody took some time off to stay home with the kids and then they're returning to work and before they took time off they were making a higher income. And although, from a pure dollar standpoint they may be making more dollars now as in relation to the cap, that may not necessarily be the case.Nick: That highest 35 earning years is in relation to that cap. And with how social security date change the mailing out of the [inaudible 00:07:04] and that sort of thing, we absolutely recommend that people, although it can be a little bit of a pain from the process, to really get logged into the site, make sure they understand how to access that statement, make sure they understand how to read that statement. Especially from the standpoint of people that we have that are self employed. We have them double check their statements to make sure that their income is being correctly recorded because they may be paying in their self employment tax, which is essentially payroll tax. Making sure that that's recorded properly so they're going to get the benefits that they're entitled to down the road.Mark: Yeah. Now guys, I've heard through the years that if you see those zeros on there like John mentioned that that's not really on the social security to fix that. That falls back on you in trying to follow up possibly with past and employers. Like if you know you earned something in a given year and you're seeing a zero, is that still how it is? Is that the way that it goes? Do you need to talk with the social security office about that or do you need to track down that past employer?John: You do need to reach out to them and Nick's, I believe, grandfather did that and Nick can share that story.Mark: Oh, all right.Nick: And this was years ago, so I don't know any details on it, but my grandfather was from Cuba and so he had a natural distrust for the government. And when he was a professor at the University of Rochester and when he went to retire and file for social security, he did not agree with the amount. And due to his non-trusting nature, he happened to have every pay stub that he ever had in the basement. And so he was able to figure that out. Luckily now we have things that are more electronic and we do have people try to keep some sort of record and haven't had anybody recently deal with that in any sort of deeper way.Mark: That's good.Nick: But usually a tax return will help. And tax returns are one of the things that we have people ... We've got a portal for clients and we have them upload those tax returns so that they can be a really good resource down the road in case there's any issues.Mark: Well that's cool. Yeah. I mean I'm 48 and I think about myself and I think God, if I had to go back and figure out who I worked for when I was 20 and what they owed me or whatever, or what I paid in, I don't know where I'd start. So that was awesome that your grandfather actually kept all that stuff. Because I know that for a lot of people that would be definitely a challenge. But that's just something I thought about and I wanted to bring that up and get your guys' opinion on that.Mark: So if you're talking about things that are really important to people, obviously a big question for boomers, and I'm sure you get this at the wellness events that you do and just in general is the constant question of the health of the fund. Is it going to be around?John: Yeah, that is a 100% the main question we get at the workshops and also when we're doing planning for clients. But as it states today there's actually a surplus and the fund is actually growing. There's roughly $2.9 trillion in it and when you say trillion it doesn't really in reality mean much, we have no idea what that actually equates to.Mark: It sounds like a lot.John: [crosstalk 00:09:56] Surplus, it is a lot. But the surplus is about $3 billion a year between money that's coming into it through the payroll taxes and also the interest earned on the balance. Just to kind of give some people some numbers because they're always asking. In 2023, 2024 that surplus actually will stop. So it's actually going to be going into a deficit and then in 2034 the fund's basically exhausted and then it's just going to be paid through basically money coming in through payroll taxes and then the money's going to come out. An then in 2034 when that happens, based on the numbers, the estimates, is looking like there's going to be a 21% reduction of benefits. So you're going to get 79% of the benefit owed to you. And again, that's if no changes happen, which we'll we're going to go into shortly. Nick will start it up where we're talking about some of the reforms that already have been happening and that will continue to happen.Nick: And we do tend to ... Some of these will probably be repeated throughout the series about social security. And earlier I mentioned the increase in max earnings, removing that cap. That's probably one of the lowest hanging fruit from the standpoint of people getting on board with making higher income earners continue to pay into the system. Right now, the earliest retirement age that somebody can collect benefits from is 62. So that's an age, especially with the longevity of people's lives and people just living longer overall, that 62 will probably start to increase. I'm sure people will be grandfathered in at a certain age or certain, your worth and before it will be grandfathered in, but-Mark: It seems like that's a really-Nick: John and I suspect that our-Mark: Yeah, that seems like the easiest one too for a lot of things. Right? Just push it back for people under a certain age, like 50 and under or something, just push it back.Nick: Yeah. And social security ... The trickiest thing and probably one of the biggest reasons that not much has been done with it is because, frankly politicians are worried about not getting voted back into office, so-Mark: Yeah, it's a political poker chip for sure.Nick: They [inaudible 00:11:53] can down the road and try not to tick people off at least to a certain extent. So raising that initial retirement age from 62 probably upwards of ... They'll probably ease it in, but I wouldn't be surprised if John and I, our initial retirement age is closer to 65 or higher.Nick: They've talked about doing means testing from the standpoint of if people have a certain amount of income on that they wouldn't collect their social security. I think that one will probably be a little bit more difficult because usually that's income focused and honestly there's a lot of ways around that.Nick: But another thing would be that cost of living adjustment, and that's been tinkered with a little bit really over the last decade as inflation stayed low for a little while and interest rates were really low. But that could be something that they adjust. But realistically what we think will be the easiest things to do will be to take up on the payroll tax, potentially have employers put in a slightly larger percentage than the actual employee. It's something that they can do. Increasing that cap or the earning cap or removing the cap in general, and bumping back that initial retirement age, are all things that we think will be a big deal.Nick: The other thing could be the, really the increases, the percentage increases that social security provides for people that defer taking their benefits. So if they wait, any year after full retirement age, there's an 8% increase. And so that's something that'll probably drop as well.Nick: The good news is that this is pretty actuarial and really all you have to do is math to figure it out. It's just going to take people being willing, people being the government, being willing to make the changes.John: Yeah. And they've already, in 2015 they actually closed some of the loopholes which we've been seeing a lot of in planning some strategies that people were using are going away, which helped the program out. They're already doing some things. And the big thing that ... One of the things Nick talked about was the cost of living adjustments. To me that's one of the ones we need to keep an eye on because when we're doing planning, it really helps out the plan when you have some type of guaranteed income that actually goes up with inflation.John: Historically, social security has gone up about 2.6%. It's been low over the last five or six years due to inflation, but that's actually a pretty nice benefit when you look at what you start with at let's say 66 and what you end up with that age 85. It's a big amount. When you look over that 20 year period.Nick: Probably the one people want to fight for the most to maintain from the standpoint of anybody that's likes to be active or have a vested interest in the topic, that cost of living adjustment's really, really important for them.Mark: Absolutely. Well, let's take that point and segue into an offer for you guys. If you're listening and you want a free maximization strategy and the social security guide to anyone who emails in, just email john@pfgprivatewealth.com that's john@pfgprivatewealth.com. Again to get that free maximization strategy and social security guide here on the program.Mark: And I that's going to do it for us this week on the podcast guys. Really good information to start this week, talking about social security here on the show. We're going to continue on, as Nick mentioned earlier on, and do a multi-part series on this next time here on the program. We're going to talk about integrating social security into your retirement plan, making that part of the plan and some things to look for and think about in regards to that.Mark: You've been listening to retirement planning redefined with John and Nick financial advisors at PFG Private Wealth. Again, that's PFG Private Wealth and that you can find them online at pfgprivatewealth.com and subscribe to the podcast while you're there. Don't forget to email John if you'd like to get that social security maximization or give him a call at (813)-286-7776. If you've got some questions about your own social security, get on the horn with them. Come in for a consultation and a conversation. (813)-286-7776. This has been retirement planning redefined for John and Nick. I'm Mark and we'll see you next time.