Social Security launches a new online benefits calculator

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Baby boomers who are nearing retirement -- or just thinking about it -- will want to check this out: The Social Security Administration has a new online calculator for estimating your personal retirement benefits.

The Retirement Estimator requires that you enter your name, Social Security number and a few other pieces of personal data, but doesn’t require you to plug in years of earnings history. The income info already is in the calculator’s database. (You will, however, have to enter your 2007 income.)

The calculator also allows you to play around with retirement scenarios to see what you’d get from Social Security depending on the age at which you decide to call it quits. So it’s more useful than the annual statement the government sends you.

One caveat: If you’re expecting to retire years down the road, you’ll have to estimate what your average annual earnings will be between now and then to get an accurate picture of your Social Security benefits.

That’s why the calculator is most useful for people who are getting close to retirement -- as opposed to, say, someone in their late-40s who might have a hard time figuring what they’ll earn between now and their last working year.

Note, too, that the benefit data you’ll see are in current dollars; there’s no adjustment for potential future inflation. That’s another reason why the numbers won’t be of much real use if you’re many years from retiring.