Have you ever avoided looking at a number because you were more afraid of knowing it than not knowing it? That quiet, grinding dread of facing what your financial future might actually hold — that’s where Marcus Rollins had been living for years.
I met Marcus through a mutual friend, Darnell, who mentioned him at a neighborhood barbecue in Columbus last fall. Darnell pulled me aside near the grill and said, almost in a whisper, “You should talk to Marcus. He’s going through something with Social Security and he doesn’t know who to ask.” Three weeks later, Marcus and I were sitting at his kitchen table in his home on the east side of Columbus, a cup of coffee between us and a lot of financial anxiety in the air.
Marcus Rollins is 59 years old. He’s been a pest control technician for almost two decades, currently earning roughly $38,000 a year. He’s remarried — his wife, Cheryl, works part-time at a daycare — and together they’re raising a blended household that includes kids from both of their previous relationships. He is, by his own description, stretched thin in every direction.
The Weight of Supporting Others on a Technician’s Salary
Marcus doesn’t have a 401(k). He never has. The company he works for offers a basic plan, but for years he opted out because the money felt more urgent elsewhere — and there was always somewhere urgent it needed to go.
“Every month I’m sending money somewhere,” Marcus told me, leaning back in his chair. “My mom needs help with her electric. My wife’s youngest needed school stuff. There’s always something, and I’m not the type to say no when somebody I love is struggling.”
He estimates he sends between $350 and $500 a month to various family members, depending on the month. That’s money that has never gone toward a retirement account, never been invested, never compounded over decades. At 59, Marcus has virtually zero saved for retirement — a situation that, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics, is more common than most Americans realize, particularly among lower-middle income workers.
For most of his adult life, Marcus had pushed the question of retirement into a drawer he never opened. He knew Social Security existed. He knew he’d paid into it for years. But he had never once — not once — logged into SSA.gov to see what was actually waiting for him there.
The Day He Finally Looked
The turning point came in January 2026, when Cheryl sat him down after a conversation with her own sister, who had recently started planning her retirement. “She just looked at me and said, ‘Marcus, you need to know your number,'” he recalled. “I kept making excuses. But she wasn’t letting it go that time.”
He created a my Social Security account at SSA.gov on a Tuesday evening in late January. He’d been putting it off so long that he half-expected the system to tell him something had gone wrong — that his work history was incomplete, or that he’d somehow missed qualifying for something.
Instead, the statement showed him a projected monthly benefit at full retirement age — age 67 for someone born in 1966 or 1967, which applies to Marcus — of approximately $1,610 per month. If he waited until 70, that figure would climb to roughly $2,000 per month. And if he claimed early, at 62, it would drop to somewhere around $1,127.
“I stared at that screen for probably ten minutes,” Marcus told me. “I kept thinking — okay, that’s real money. That’s something. But then I started doing math and I realized, that’s also all I’ve got.”
The Numbers That Made Hope and Fear Arrive at the Same Time
The mixed emotion Marcus described — relief and dread arriving together — is something I’ve heard from other workers in similar positions. Seeing the Social Security projection for the first time can feel like a lifeline being thrown to someone who didn’t realize they were drowning.
Marcus’s projected benefit at 67 would cover his basic household expenses — utilities, groceries, minimum bills — but leaves almost no margin. It doesn’t account for health costs, the family support payments he still expects to make, or the simple reality that $1,610 in 2034 will buy less than $1,610 buys today.
He also learned something that genuinely surprised him: his work history was more complete than he’d feared. He’d had a gap in his mid-30s — a rough stretch after his first marriage ended where he’d done cash jobs for about 18 months. He’d been convinced that period had cost him credits. It hadn’t wiped anything out.
The early claim option at 62 is tempting in a way that concerns Marcus himself. His body is starting to feel the years of physical labor. His knees ache after long days. He’s not sure how many more years of crawling under houses and climbing into attics are ahead of him. The idea of getting to 62 and pulling that lever early — even knowing it would cost him hundreds of dollars a month for the rest of his life — has a certain desperate logic to it.
A Small Win That Changed His Posture — But Not His Situation
The “small win” Marcus mentioned when we talked was this: after checking his SSA statement, he and Cheryl decided to redirect $150 a month — money that had previously just drifted — into a basic savings account. Not a retirement account, not an IRA. Just a savings account at their local credit union. They’ve done it for three months straight, which Marcus described as the first time in his adult life he’s consistently saved anything.
“Three months doesn’t sound like much,” he said, with a short, self-aware laugh. “But for me? Keeping that up for three months in a row is actually kind of a big deal.”
What Marcus is navigating is not unusual, and that’s both comforting and unsettling at the same time. Tens of millions of Americans near retirement age have minimal savings and will depend heavily — or entirely — on Social Security. The question of when to claim, and how much it will actually cover, is not abstract for them. It is the plan.
What changed for Marcus isn’t his balance sheet. It’s his relationship to the information. He looked at the number. He sat with the discomfort. And he started — slowly, imperfectly — moving toward it rather than away from it.
What Comes Next — and What Doesn’t Get Resolved
When I asked Marcus what his biggest fear was going forward, he didn’t hesitate. “That my body gives out before I can wait until 67,” he said. “Because if I have to claim at 62, that’s a permanent haircut on every check for the rest of my life. And I’ve got nobody to fall back on if that’s not enough.”
He’s also thinking about Cheryl. Her work history is less consistent — she left the workforce for several years while her children were young — and her projected Social Security benefit is lower than his. If Marcus claims early due to physical limitations, they both absorb that reduction together, for the rest of their lives.
- Marcus plans to keep the $150/month savings habit and try to increase it if any family support obligations ease up
- He wants to revisit his SSA statement annually to track any benefit changes
- He’s considering speaking with a benefits counselor through Ohio’s OSHIIP program, which provides free Medicare and benefits counseling to Ohioans
- He is not currently planning to claim early, but acknowledges physical health will be the deciding factor
There’s no triumphant resolution to Marcus’s story — not yet, and maybe not ever in the clean, satisfying way we’d hope. He has a clearer picture than he did six months ago, and that picture is both reassuring and sobering in equal measure. The small savings habit is real. The fear about his body and the early-claim trap is also real.
When I left his house that afternoon, he walked me to the door and said something I keep coming back to: “I’m not where I should be. But at least I know where I am.”
For someone who spent years looking away from the numbers, that’s not nothing. It might even be the beginning of something.
Sloane Avery Wren is Senior Benefits Writer at Benefit Beat, covering Social Security, Medicare, and government benefits. This article is reported narrative journalism and does not constitute financial advice.
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