Editorial Policy & Methodology
Retirement money decisions matter, so we hold our calculators and guides to clear standards. This page explains how we research, build, review and update them.
Primary sources only
Every rate, threshold and date used on the Site comes from a primary source, including:
- Social Security Administration: annual COLA fact sheets, the Office of the Chief Actuary’s benefit formula pages, and the yearly payment schedule publication.
- Internal Revenue Service: the annual inflation-adjustment revenue procedure, Publication 915 (Social Security benefits) and Publication 590-B (distributions from IRAs).
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and Medicare.gov: Part B premiums, deductibles and income-related adjustments.
Each calculator and guide lists the sources it relies on.
Official versus projected figures
Some next-year amounts are published only in the fall (for example, Medicare Part B premiums in November and IRS inflation adjustments in October or November). Until then we may use projections from the Medicare Trustees Report or published inflation-index calculations, and we label those figures projected wherever they appear. We replace them with official figures as soon as the agencies publish.
How the calculators are built
- All yearly figures are stored in one central data file, so a single update applies to every tool consistently.
- Each calculator page explains the formula it uses, its assumptions and its limits, with a worked example.
- We test calculators against the worked examples published by the agencies and against hand calculations.
- Calculations run in your browser; we do not collect the numbers you enter.
Writing and review
Guides are written and reviewed by Markus, the site’s editor. We aim for plain English, large readable text, and examples with round numbers. We do not publish paid or sponsored content, and advertising has no influence on what we write or how calculators work.
Updates and corrections
We review all figures every year when the new amounts are announced, and pages show the date they were last reviewed. If you find an error, please contact us with the page and the source; we investigate every report and correct confirmed errors promptly.
Limits
Our tools give estimates for typical situations. They do not replace the official calculation by the agency that pays or taxes your benefit, or personal advice from a qualified professional. See our disclaimer.