Articles

Five things to know about when to claim Social Security

When to start Social Security is one of the few retirement decisions you make once and live with for the rest of your life. These are the five points people most often have wrong when they make it.

Full retirement age is probably 67, not 65

Full retirement age is the age at which you get 100% of your benefit. For anyone born in 1960 or later, it is 67. It was 66 for people born from 1943 to 1954, and each birth year from 1955 to 1959 adds two months.

The 65 most people remember is the Medicare age. It hasn't been full retirement age for anyone born after 1937. So if you plan to claim “at retirement age” and retire at 65, you are claiming early, with a smaller benefit for life.

Claiming at 62 cuts your benefit by about 30%, permanently

With a full retirement age of 67, claiming at 62 pays 70% of your full benefit. Waiting past 67 adds two-thirds of a percent for each month you delay, which is 8% a year. Take someone whose statement shows $2,800 a month at 67:

The benefit at 70 is 77% larger than at 62, from the same work record. The reduction for claiming early doesn't go away at full retirement age, and every future cost-of-living raise is a percentage of the smaller amount.

Waiting past 70 earns nothing

The 8% a year stops at 70. Nothing grows after that, so there is no benefit to applying later. Applying late can cost you money: Social Security pays back at most six months of benefits you didn't claim. Someone who turns 70 and forgets to apply until 71 loses about six months of payments for good.

Social Security isn't going to zero

The 2026 Trustees Report projects that the retirement trust fund will run out of reserves in late 2032 (SSA, June 9, 2026). After that, the payroll taxes still coming in would cover about 78% of scheduled benefits, unless Congress changes the law before then.

A 22% cut would be a real loss, and it is worth planning for. It is also a long way from nothing. Someone who claims at 62 because they expect the program to disappear takes a 30% cut that applies whatever Congress does.

For a couple, the higher earner's age decides the survivor's income

When one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits, and the smaller one stops. If the higher earner claimed at 70, the survivor inherits a benefit 24% above that person's full amount. If they claimed at 62, the survivor inherits a reduced one, for what could be twenty years or more.

So for many couples, the higher earner's claiming age matters more than the lower earner's. A spousal benefit, by contrast, tops out at 50% of the higher earner's full amount and doesn't grow if the higher earner waits past full retirement age.

How long it takes for waiting to pay off

In the $2,800 example, the person who claims at 62 collects for eight years before the person who waits until 70 gets anything. The larger checks catch up a little past age 80. Both amounts rise with the same cost-of-living adjustment, so that age holds in today's dollars.

Live past 80 and waiting paid more in total. Die before it and claiming early did. Your health and family history matter here, and so does whether you have savings to live on while you wait, because the years between retiring and claiming have to be paid for from somewhere.

See what your claiming age does to your plan, with your own Social Security estimate, taxes and savings.

What this doesn't model

• MangoDime pays the full scheduled benefit in every year of your plan. It doesn't apply the cut projected after 2032. To see that case, enter a Social Security estimate about 22% lower.
• The catch-up age above ignores taxes and what the early checks could earn if invested. Your plan includes the taxes.
• If you claim before full retirement age and keep working, Social Security can hold back part of your benefit until you reach it. Your plan doesn't model that.

General information, not investment, tax or legal advice.

Last updated October 30, 2026 · MangoDime