# The Wise Senior

> Verified calculators for work, money, and tax decisions: state unemployment benefits,
> severance and layoff rights, 1099/gig and creator taxes, nanny and household-employer
> taxes, and take-home pay for every US state and Canadian province. Every changing figure
> is transcribed from its official source (IRS, SSA, DOL, state workforce and revenue
> agencies, CRA) into a versioned, dated rule pack and displayed with a visible
> verification stamp. All calculators run client-side; estimates only.

IMPORTANT: thewisesenior.com is a private, independent website. It is NOT affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Medicare, CMS, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or any other government agency. We do not sell insurance and we do not offer, rank, or recommend any Medicare plan. For plan choices and official determinations, use the official links provided on each page.

## Machine-readable data (cite these)

- [Rule pack index](https://thewisesenior.com/rulepacks/index.json): every data pack with packId, agency, effective year, verification date, and official source URL
- [Data provenance ledger](https://thewisesenior.com/sources): human-readable list of every source
- MCP server: https://api.cosyslabs.com/thewisesenior/mcp — tool responses cite pack version + official source
- [Developer docs](https://thewisesenior.com/developers)

## What Medicare Costs

- [What Medicare Costs hub](https://thewisesenior.com/medicare-costs): What Medicare actually costs you in a year — the Part B premium, the IRMAA surcharge that surprises higher-income retirees two years after the fact, Part D, deductibles, and the late-enrollment penalties that never go away. Every figure comes from the CMS document that set it, with the year it took effect printed beside it.
- [IRMAA Calculator — Medicare Income Surcharge](https://thewisesenior.com/irmaa-calculator): IRMAA is the income-related surcharge added to your Medicare Part B and Part D premiums when the tax return you filed two years ago showed income above a threshold. Enter that income and your filing status to estimate your tier, the monthly and yearly surcharge, and exactly how many dollars sit between you and the next cliff.
- [Roth Conversion and IRMAA — Your 2026 Conversion Sets Your 2028 Premium](https://thewisesenior.com/roth-conversion-irmaa): A Roth conversion counts as income, and Medicare sets your premium from the return you filed two years earlier. So a conversion made this autumn surfaces as a surcharge two Januarys later. Enter your income and the amount you are weighing to see which thresholds it crosses and what each step costs.
- [Medicare Part B Premium and Deductible](https://thewisesenior.com/medicare-part-b-premium): The standard Medicare Part B premium and annual deductible for 2026, taken straight from the CMS notice that set them, with every year back to 2016 so you can see how fast this line item has actually risen. Higher earners pay more through IRMAA; this page shows the base figure everyone starts from.
- [Medicare Late Enrollment Penalty Calculator](https://thewisesenior.com/medicare-late-enrollment-penalty-calculator): Sign up for Medicare Part B or Part D late and the surcharge is permanent. Enter how many months you went without each kind of coverage to estimate what the penalty adds every month, every year, and over a horizon you choose. Part B counts full twelve-month periods only, so partial years cost nothing.
- [Medicare Enrollment Windows — Your Personal Dates](https://thewisesenior.com/medicare-enrollment-windows): Your seven-month Medicare sign-up window is worked out from your birthday, and being born on the first of a month shifts the whole thing a month earlier. Enter your date of birth to estimate your own dates, see when coverage would start, and download them to your calendar. No email address required.
- [Form SSA-44 — Reducing IRMAA After a Life-Changing Event](https://thewisesenior.com/ssa-44-walkthrough): Form SSA-44 is how you ask Social Security to base your Medicare surcharge on this year's income instead of the two-year-old tax return that triggered it. Here are the eight life-changing events that qualify, the evidence Social Security accepts for each one, and how the form is filed. Filing it is free.
- [Total Medicare Cost Estimator](https://thewisesenior.com/total-medicare-cost-estimator): Nobody publishes one number for what a year of Medicare costs a household, because the pieces live in separate documents. This estimator adds them: the Part B premium, any IRMAA surcharge, deductibles, and the drug or supplement premium you supply. Original Medicare and Advantage are shown as two shapes of cost, without a verdict.
- [Medigap vs Medicare Advantage — How the Costs Are Structured](https://thewisesenior.com/medigap-vs-medicare-advantage-costs): Medigap and Medicare Advantage do not cost more or less than each other — they put the cost in different places. One front-loads predictable premiums, the other front-loads less and exposes you to out-of-pocket charges up to a yearly maximum. Here is the structure of each, in figures CMS publishes, with no plan named.
- [Medicare Part D Costs and the Yearly Out-of-Pocket Cap](https://thewisesenior.com/medicare-part-d-costs): What Medicare drug coverage can cost you in a year, now that there is a hard ceiling on it. The cap, the most a plan may charge as a deductible, and the national figure that quietly sets the late-enrollment penalty, each taken from the CMS notice that published it. No plan is named or priced.

## When to Take Social Security

- [When to Take Social Security hub](https://thewisesenior.com/social-security): The claiming-age decision, worked honestly. Compare what 62, your full retirement age, and 70 actually pay using the benefit figure on your own Social Security statement — plus the break-even math and its limits, the survivor benefit most calculators ignore, the earnings test, and how much of your benefit is taxable.
- [Social Security Break-Even Calculator](https://thewisesenior.com/social-security-break-even-calculator): Enter the benefit printed on your own Social Security statement and see the age at which claiming later overtakes claiming earlier, in plain cumulative dollars and again weighted by the chance of living to collect. This is an estimate, and the panel beside it names the four things a break-even age cannot tell you.
- [Social Security at 62, 67, or 70: What Each One Pays](https://thewisesenior.com/social-security-62-vs-67-vs-70): See what claiming at 62, at your full retirement age, and at 70 would pay each month and each year, worked from the benefit figure on your own Social Security statement. Includes the break-even math between any two of them, and an honest account of what that break-even age leaves out. Estimate only.
- [Full Retirement Age Lookup](https://thewisesenior.com/full-retirement-age-lookup): Your full retirement age is set by the year you were born, from 65 for people born before 1938 to 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Enter your birth year to see yours, the whole statutory table it comes from, and what claiming at 62 or at 70 would do to your benefit.
- [Taxes on Social Security Benefits Calculator](https://thewisesenior.com/taxes-on-social-security-calculator): Work out how much of your Social Security is taxable, using the combined-income test the IRS actually applies: your other income, plus any tax-exempt interest, plus half your benefits. Crossing a threshold taxes only the amount above it, up to 85%, which makes it a bracket rather than the cliff Medicare's income surcharge uses. Estimate only.
- [Social Security Survivor Benefits Pay Chart](https://thewisesenior.com/survivor-benefits-pay-chart): When one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two Social Security benefits, not both. Enter what each of you receives to see the household income that would remain, the monthly drop in each case, and how the higher earner's claiming age sets the survivor's floor for life. Estimate only.
- [Social Security Earnings Test Calculator](https://thewisesenior.com/earnings-test-calculator): If you claim Social Security before full retirement age and keep working, some of your benefit is withheld once your earnings pass the annual limit. Enter your expected earnings to see how much. The part people are rarely told: what is withheld is added back to your monthly benefit at full retirement age. Estimate only.
- [Social Security Payment Dates — When Your Money Arrives](https://thewisesenior.com/social-security-payment-schedule): Social Security pays on a Wednesday decided by the day of the month you were born, so two people in one household are often paid on different days. Enter that day to see every payment date for the year, the date to wait until before calling, and why a spouse follows a different schedule.

## Paying for Care

- [Paying for Care hub](https://thewisesenior.com/paying-for-care): What home care, assisted living, and nursing homes cost in your state, and — the part most cost calculators skip — who actually pays for each one. Medicare, Medicaid, VA Aid and Attendance, long-term care insurance, and out of pocket, laid out plainly, with the programs you may already qualify for.
- [Medicare Savings Programs and Extra Help](https://thewisesenior.com/medicare-savings-programs): Four programs pay the Medicare premiums of people with limited income, and a fifth pays most drug costs. Answer two questions to see where your figures sit against the federal limits for QMB, SLMB, QI and QDWI, plus Part D Extra Help. Those federal numbers are a floor many states exceed, so this is an estimate, never a decision.
- [VA Aid and Attendance Calculator](https://thewisesenior.com/va-aid-and-attendance-calculator): Aid and Attendance is paid as the gap between a maximum yearly pension rate and your income for VA purposes — and unreimbursed medical expenses above five percent of that rate come off your income first. This estimate shows both figures, so you can see why people in assisted living qualify. Not legal advice; accredited representatives help free.
- [Care Cost Comparer](https://thewisesenior.com/care-cost-comparer): What in-home care, adult day programs, assisted living and nursing homes cost in your state, converted to monthly and yearly figures from the hours you actually expect to use. The survey publishes each kind of care in a different unit, so the arithmetic that makes them comparable is ours, and it is printed beside every number. Estimate only.
- [How Will We Pay for Care? A Funding Screener](https://thewisesenior.com/eldercare-funding-screener): Seven questions, none of them about who you are, and the answer is a list of offices rather than a verdict: Medicare Savings Programs, Medicaid long-term care, VA pension, your free state counselors, the area agency on aging, and an elder-law attorney if property is involved. Each one names who decides and what to bring. Estimate only, never a determination.
- [What a Funeral Costs](https://thewisesenior.com/funeral-costs): The national median for a funeral with viewing and burial, and for one with cremation, from the industry price survey — plus what those medians leave out and the federal rule that entitles you to an itemized price list you can keep. Education only: we do not sell, quote or refer burial insurance, and never will.
- [The Medicaid Look-Back and Spend-Down](https://thewisesenior.com/medicaid-look-back): Medicaid examines a five-year window before an application, looking for gifts and property transfers, and one found there creates a penalty period that starts only once the money has already run out. Here is how that works, how fast a spend-down happens, and a printable worksheet. Not legal advice — your state agency decides.
- [Who Pays for What: Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, Insurance, and You](https://thewisesenior.com/who-pays-for-what): Six care situations against the five payers that actually exist, with a plain verdict in every cell. The short version is that Medicare covers skilled care and not the custodial help most people eventually need, which is why one column is almost entirely empty and why so many households are caught out.
- [Final Expense Insurance and What People Use Instead](https://thewisesenior.com/final-expense-alternatives): Four ways households cover a funeral, how each is structured, and what to check before committing to any of them. Includes the comparison nobody selling a policy shows you — total premiums against the death benefit — and the VA burial allowances that families routinely fail to claim. Estimate only; no insurer is named.

## Checklists & Dates

- [Checklists & Dates hub](https://thewisesenior.com/checklists): Print-first checklists and personalized date calendars: what to do the year you turn 65, what to re-check every fall during open enrollment, what to gather before helping a parent, and your own enrollment and claiming dates worked out from your birthday — downloadable to your calendar.
- [Turning 65 — The Checklist to Work Down in the Year Before](https://thewisesenior.com/turning-65-checklist): A print-first sheet for the year you turn 65, ordered by deadline rather than by subject. Two of the items close doors that never reopen: the Part B late-enrollment penalty lasts for life, and the Medigap window that protects you from health underwriting happens once. Those sit at the top.
- [The Autumn Medicare Review — What to Check While the Window Is Open](https://thewisesenior.com/annual-enrollment-checklist): Twenty minutes each autumn, in order. Drug lists, networks, premiums and deductibles all change on January 1 whether or not anyone looked. Most years nothing needs to change — but that is only worth knowing if it was checked against the notice your plan already sent you in September.
- [Helping a Parent — The Paperwork Checklist, in the Order That Matters](https://thewisesenior.com/parent-care-paperwork-checklist): A print-first sheet for helping a parent with their money and care, ordered by what stops being possible if you wait. The first block can only be signed while they still have capacity to sign it; after that the only route is a court guardianship. Everything else can be gathered later.

## Key pages

- [Free kit](https://thewisesenior.com/kit)
- [Sources](https://thewisesenior.com/sources): the data provenance ledger — every rule pack and its official source
- [MCP](https://thewisesenior.com/mcp): how to connect an AI assistant to the calculators
- [About](https://thewisesenior.com/about)