There's never been a better time than the present to plan for your retirement. Why's that? Because Social Security's Retirement Estimator has just been rated the best online service in government! You can find it online at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator.

Every quarter, the University of Michigan conducts the American Customer Satisfaction Index for Federal Websites. In their most recent study, the index showed that Social Security's new online Retirement Estimator ranked as the best in government.

The online Retirement Estimator is a convenient, secure and quick financial planning tool that lets workers calculate how much they might expect to receive in Social Security benefits when they retire. The attractive new feature of this calculator is that it eliminates the need to manually key in years of earnings information. It's so easy to use.

The new Retirement Estimator debuted with a score of 90, the highest score in this survey. Perhaps even more impressive, it is the second-highest score ever received by any government website or online service.

Several other Social Security online services, including our online retirement application, also are rated among the government's top performers and equal to the highest caliber private sector sites, such as Amazon and Google. But for the new Retirement Estimator to be rated best in government just two months after it was launched is a testament to how easy and useful it is.

The new Retirement Estimator is available at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator and gives the public the opportunity to run accurate, personalized scenarios for Social Security retirement benefits in a user-friendly way.

You also can create "what if" scenarios. For example, you can change "stop work" dates or expected future earnings to create and compare different retirement options that may be in your future.

So experience the best online service in government now by visiting Social Security's Retirement Estimator at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator.

Ginny Jordan is a Public Affairs Specialist for the Social Security Administration. Her weekly column on all things Social Security appears in the Sunday Edition of the Sun-Sentinel.

Ginny has agreed to let us reprint her articles here for your convenience.

Thank you Ginny!