Insight SS bridge gap total

Sum over delaying claimants of the bridge ladder cost and of the annual real bridge income sized by sizeBridge, for claimants whose gap years are not already covered by a plan ladder.

Field: Social Security bridge total cost and income Unit: US dollars Basis: nominal dollars Computed by: Engine Status: Complete chain

Appears in: insights (ss-bridge-gap card rationale "A TIPS bridge ladder (≈$X today) pays you ... (~$Y/yr)")

Calculation records

• Household Social Security bridge: summed ladder cost and annual real income Composition record, justified by derivation

  Purpose: The household total of independently sized Social Security bridge ladders for delaying claimants whose gap is not already covered.

  Statement: Each delaying claimant is independently sized by sizeBridge. Eligible claimants are those whose retirement-to-claim gap is not already covered by a plan ladder. totalCost = sum of eligible ladderCost_i; annualTotal = sum of eligible annualRealAmount_i. After that aggregation, one household test reports the totals when liquidBalance >= 0.5 × totalCost. The screen does not compute or apply claimant-level funding ratios. Units: dollars (ladder cost in today's dollars; annual amount real). Rounding: none.

  Formula: totalCost = sum_eligible ladderCost_i; annualTotal = sum_eligible annualRealAmount_i

  • ladderCost_i: Quoted TIPS-ladder cost for claimant i, already resolved by sizeBridge (unit: usd) (domain: >= 0)
  • annualRealAmount_i: Level real annual bridge payout for claimant i, already resolved by sizeBridge (unit: usd/year) (domain: >= 0)

  Timing: sum over currently delaying claimants at the projection start year

  Rounding: the card publishes whole-dollar strings (formatWholeUsd, Math.round) and the evidence asserts the published figure; sums are exact before that

  Limits:

  • A scenario preview, not a claim the ladder is affordable merely because half its cost is present
  • The worksheet supplies already-sized per-claimant ladder costs and annual amounts; the evidence passes those through rather than re-running sizeBridge on the embedded curve
  • The 50% funding gate is a single household test against the summed eligible cost after aggregation, not a per-claimant ratio; an insufficiency comparison (liquid < 0.5 × totalCost) is a wrong reading

  Provenance: derived by codex, implemented by grok.

  Independent review: cursor

  Gates (6 of 6 pass): fixture registers a test: pass; pins resolve: pass; families exist: pass; worksheet exists: pass; mutation receipt exists: pass; provenance independent: pass

  Worksheet: insight-ss-bridge-gap-total.md Mutation receipt: insight-ss-bridge-gap-total.mutation.md

  Evidence tests: ssBridgeGap.evidence.test.ts

  Implemented in: ssBridgeGap.ts

  Is the number of: insight-ss-bridge-gap-total

Records that feed this number

• Social Security bridge: age-62 replacement sized as a TIPS ladder Formula record, justified by derivation

  Purpose: The real-dollar bridge that pays the forgone age-62 benefit from retirement until the chosen claim, quoted as a TIPS ladder bought this year.

  Statement: Monthly age-62 benefit M = PIA × f_62; annual real amount A = 12M. startYear = max(age-62 year, retirementYear, currentYear+1). For a January claim (months = 0), endYear = claimYear − 1; for a mid-year claim, endYear = claimYear. years N = endYear − startYear + 1. ladderCost is the TIPS-ladder price of N annual real payments of A purchased in the current year. On a zero real curve with unit present value, cost = N A. Returns null when the claim is at or before 62 or the window is empty. Units: today's dollars and calendar years. Rounding: none.

  Formula: M = PIA × f_62; A = 12M; N = endYear − startYear + 1; cost = price of N real payments of A

  • PIA: Primary insurance amount, monthly, today's dollars (unit: usd/month) (domain: > 0)
  • f_62: Claim factor at age 62, already resolved for the date of birth (unit: 1) (domain: 0 < f_62 <= 1)
  • startYear: First calendar year the bridge pays (unit: year) (domain: integer)
  • endYear: Last calendar year the bridge pays (unit: year) (domain: integer >= startYear)

  Timing: annual real payments from startYear through endYear inclusive; ladder purchased in currentYear

  Rounding: none

  Limits:

  • The date formula (January claim ends the year before the claim year; start is the later of age 62, retirement, and next year) is the comments' stated convention
  • Synthetic TIPS coupons are floored at 0.125% (ladderMath MIN_TIPS_COUPON_PCT). On the zero real curve the worksheet states, that floor is absorbed into the back-solved face amounts and the ladder cost equals N x A exactly, which the evidence asserts at 1e-9 (a passing check, not an assumption); on a nonzero curve the cost is the discounted ladder and differs from N x A, and the worksheet does not claim otherwise

  Provenance: derived by codex, implemented by grok.

  Independent review: cursor

  Gates (6 of 6 pass): fixture registers a test: pass; pins resolve: pass; families exist: pass; worksheet exists: pass; mutation receipt exists: pass; provenance independent: pass

  Worksheet: ss-bridge-sizing.md Mutation receipt: ss-bridge-sizing.mutation.md

  Evidence tests: bridge.evidence.test.ts

  Implemented in: bridge.ts

  Is the number of: social-security-bridge-sizing

  Feeds: insight-ss-bridge-gap-total

Engine source: engine/src/insights/detectors/ssBridgeGap.ts (ssBridgeGap.screen (totalCost, annualTotal))