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A Free Social Security Analysis Tool, and S&P 500 Yield Hits an All-Time Low

May 19, 2026 — 04:56 pm EDT

Written by

Motley Fool Staff for

The Motley Fool->

In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool retirement expert Robert Brokamp discusses the pros and cons of delaying with CPA and financial planner Mike Piper, the creator of opensocialsecurity.com, a free tool that helps retirees choose the optimal age to claim benefits. Also discussed in this episode:

- A report from Standard & Poor’s finds that only 1 in 10 mutual funds that performed in the top 25% from 2016-2020 remained in the top 25% from 2021-2025.

- Home price growth has begun lagging inflation, and many cities are still below their 2022 highs.

- The dividend yield on the S&P 500 hits an all-time low, falling below the previous low reached at the height of the dot-com bubble.

- With the end of the school year approaching, your kids or grandkids are one year closer to college. Now is a good time to evaluate your 529 plan and whether you’re saving enough.

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A full transcript is below.

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This podcast was recorded on May 16, 2026.

Robert Brokamp: A free tool to help you decide when to claim Social Security, and the S&P 500 dividend yield hits an all-time low. That is more on this Saturday's personal finance edition of The Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing podcast. We broke up, but this week, I speak with Mike Piper about opensocialsecurity.com, a website he created to help retirees choose the optimal age to claim Social Security.

But first up, some news from the week. On our May 2 episode, my colleague Amanda Kish and I discussed ways to evaluate mutual funds and ETFs. In that episode, Amanda said that a fund that outperforms over one period often has difficulty maintaining that outperformance. Standard & Poor's just provided some proof in its recently updated U.S. persistence scorecard, which measures how long a fund can keep a good thing going. This year's version, which includes data through the end of 2025, begins by pointing out what most of us know. It's hard to beat an index. Last year, 79% of actively managed U.S. large-cap funds underperformed the S&P 500. That was the fourth-worst year for active large-cap managers of the last quarter-century, and it’s even harder to find a manager that consistently outperforms. According to the report of the U.S. stock funds that performed in the top 25% of their categories for the five years ending in December of 2020, only about one in 10 stayed in the top 25% over the subsequent five years.

Next item, we turn to housing. The K. Shuler National Home Price Index posted a gain of 0.7% in February, down from 0.8% in January, and it was the ninth consecutive month that inflation outpaced home price appreciation. But below the surface, different parts of the country are experiencing very different price movements.

According to a recent article from EPB research, eight major U.S. cities are making new all-time highs, with Chicago, New York, and Cleveland experiencing the biggest gains over the past year. Meanwhile, seven major cities have been stuck below their 2022 peaks for almost four years. Half the country had a real housing correction with declines up to 13%, with San Francisco, Seattle, and Las Vegas being the cities down the most from their 2022 highs. One of the reasons for the disparity, according to EPB: construction. Some of the cities with declining prices in recent years experienced large price increases up to 2022, which spurred construction, which increased supply and put downward pressure on prices. The cities currently hitting all-time highs have, on average, seen much less construction. The lesson for cities where there's a lack of affordable housing: build more houses.

Now for the number of the week, which is 1.08%, that is the dividend