Ask Our Experts
By: Source: AARP Bulletin Today Date Posted: 2005-03-30 12:32:20
The AARP Bulletin's Ask Our Experts column provides answers to important questions affecting older Americans. Read below for this month's column, or review our archive of previously published questions and answers sorted by topic. (Note: Recent news or changes to regulations may affect the guidance offered in this previously published column.)
Submit your own question to the Ask Our Experts column via our easy-to-use online form.
Q. I’m looking for a job and have found that many companies ask for my date of birth on their applications. Could this be a way for employers to discriminate on the basis of age?
An employer does not violate the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act or any state anti-discrimination law simply by asking an applicant’s birth date.
Age can be a legitimate factor in certain employer-sponsored benefits—such as life insurance premiums, which are determined partially by life expectancy.
But to prove a discrimination claim, an unsuccessful job applicant who is asked to reveal his age would have to show other evidence—such as comments from the hiring officials that only younger workers were recruited or hired for the job.
To learn more, go to "Age Discrimination at Work."—Expertise provided by Thomas W. Osborne
Q. I am 71 and earn over $100,000 a year. Will I get any more money from Social Security for working past age 70?
You could. The Social Security Administration calculates a benefit in part by averaging a worker’s highest 35 years of wages—the more you earn, the higher your benefit.
The agency each year reviews the records for all beneficiaries who work. If your wages are higher for the past year than any of the previous years used to compute your benefit, the higher-earning year will be used in recalculating your benefit. This is so, whether you’re already receiving your benefit or not.
The review occurs automatically. By October 2004, for example, if your earnings raised your benefit, you should have received the increase retroactive to January 2004.
For more on calculating benefits, go to AARP’s Public Policy Institute Research Center.—Expertise provided by Laurel Beedon
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