Your benefit is built from your primary insurance amount, the figure you would receive at full retirement age. Claiming early cuts it permanently and claiming late raises it permanently.
For someone with a full retirement age of 67, filing at 62 pays 70 percent of that amount and waiting until 70 pays 124 percent. The age 70 benefit is therefore about 77 percent larger than the age 62 one, for life, and it is inflation adjusted.
It depends entirely on how long you live. The breakeven between claiming at 62 and at 70 usually falls somewhere in the late seventies to early eighties. Live past that and waiting wins, and the longer you live the more it wins by.
Yes, and this is the part most people miss. A survivor benefit cannot exceed what you were actually receiving, subject to a floor of 82.5 percent of your primary insurance amount. Filing at 62 caps your spouse at that floor for the rest of their life rather than the 124 percent they would inherit if you waited to 70.
Between full retirement age and 70 you earn delayed retirement credits of 8 percent a year. Before full retirement age the reduction runs about 6.7 percent a year for the first three years and 5 percent a year beyond that.
It is a genuine argument for filing early. Child benefits and the benefit for a spouse caring for a child are only payable once you file, and they stop when the child ages out. Those payments can be worth six figures, which has to be weighed against the permanent reduction to your own and your survivor's benefit.
Social Security calculator
Claiming at 62 gets you money sooner. Waiting until 70 gets you more every month. See what each age pays — and which one pays you the most over your whole life.
This is your PIA — the amount on your Social Security statement at ssa.gov, before any early reduction or delayed credit.
Born 1955–1959? Your real full retirement age lands between 66 and 67 — pick the closer one.
If you live to 85, the most total money comes from claiming at
Age 70
$2,480/mo · $446,400 collected by 85
That's $60,000 more than claiming at 62 — even though the cheques start 8 years later.
Bars show the total collected by age 85. Monthly amounts are what you'd get for life.
Claiming late means years with no cheques at all. These are the ages where waiting finally pulls ahead — live past them and waiting won.
Claiming at 70 beats 62 at
Age 80 years 4 months
Claiming at 67 (your full retirement age) beats 62 at
Age 78 years 8 months
Social Security has one number at its centre: your benefit at full retirement age, called your PIA. Every claiming age is just that number adjusted up or down by a fixed rule — there's no guesswork in it.
The lifetime totals here are simply your monthly benefit multiplied by the number of months between your claiming age and the age you expect to live to. The break-even ages are where the later claim's running total crosses the earlier one's.
Not sure what you'll actually need each month in retirement? Deco tracks your real spending, or try the pension calculator.
Reduction and credit rules are the SSA's published formulas: 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months of early claiming, 5/12 of 1% per month beyond that, and 2/3 of 1% per month of delayed retirement credits from full retirement age to 70. Monthly amounts are rounded down to the dollar, as SSA does.
This model deliberately ignores several real things: annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), income tax on benefits, the earnings test if you keep working before full retirement age, spousal, survivor and divorced-spouse benefits, Medicare premiums deducted from your cheque, and any investment return you might earn by taking money earlier. Full retirement age is offered as 66 or 67 only — people born 1955–1959 have an FRA in between. Real benefits also depend on your 35 highest earning years, which this doesn't model.
This is an estimate for comparing claiming ages, not financial advice. Check your actual numbers at ssa.gov before deciding. Nothing you type here is stored, sent, or tracked — it never leaves your browser.