Is This the Perfect Age to Start Collecting Social Security?

Key Points

• You can claim Social Security benefits as early as age 62 or as late as age 70.

• Starting early will make your benefits smaller, while starting late will make them larger.

• Some reports recommend age 70, but that's not necessarily perfect for everyone.

• The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook ›

One of the most important things to know about your Social Security benefits is that the longer you wait to start collecting them (up to age 70), the bigger they'll become. Therefore, a particularly important issue for most retirees is when to claim their Social Security benefits. Some reports suggest that 70 is the perfect age.

Here's a look at why you might want to start collecting your benefits early or late -- along with a discussion of what the "perfect age" might be for you.

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Social Security basics

You can start collecting Social Security as early as age 62, but doing so will result in smaller checks -- though you'll collect many more of them. You can get bigger (but fewer) checks by delaying starting to collect Social Security -- up to age 70. With each year you delay beyond your "full retirement age" (66 or 67 for most of us), your benefits will grow by about 8%.

The table below shows how much of your full benefits you'll receive depending on when you claim them:

Data source: Social Security Administration.

Note that the Social Security system is designed so that those who live average-length lives will collect roughly the same total benefits no matter when they start collecting.

Why you might claim your Social Security benefits early

There are plenty of reasons to turn on the spigot early, such as:

• You expect to live an average-length or shorter-than-average-length life.
• You need -- or want -- that money as soon as possible. By claiming early, you may be able to afford to retire, travel, pay down debt, or achieve some other goal.
• You fear Social Security's surplus running dry, as it's expected to do within a decade, so you want to start collecting as much as you can as soon as you can. You might also be worried about the Trump administration's recent changes to Social Security.
• You're coordinating with your spouse: Married folks can enact various strategies with Social Security. For example, the higher earner might try to delay claiming until age 70, while the lower earner collects earlier. This can provide some income early while you maximize the bigger benefit -- so that when one spouse dies, the survivor will get to keep that maximized benefit.
• You're suddenly out of the work force, and until you can enroll in Medicare at age 65, you need the extra income to pay for health insurance. (The cost of healthcare is a big-ticket item in every retiree's budget.)

Why you might claim your Social Security benefits late

There are also fine reasons to delay collecting, such as:

• You stand a decent chance of living a longer-than-average life.
• You're financially healthy and able to wait until age 70 to maximize your benefits.
• You're still working and you enjoy your work.
• You might be coordinating with your spouse and aiming to maximize your benefit, which your spouse can later claim if you die first.
• You want to make your benefits as big as possible, to get the biggest bumps from cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs).

The survey says...

You should make your own decision based on your own preferences and circumstances, but you might want to also consider what some researchers have found.

For starters, a 2019 study conducted by online financial planning company United Income looked at the claiming decisions of about 20,000 retired workers using data from the University of Michigan's Health and Retirement Study. It found that "About 57% of retirees would build more wealth through their life if they waited to claim until they were 70 years old (when only 4% of retirees currently claim)." And "only 6.5% of retirees would have more wealth if they claimed prior to turning 64 (when over 70% of retirees currently claim benefits)."

A more recent report, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, along with Altig, Kotlikoff, and Ye in 2022, noted: "More than 90% [of retirees] should wait till age 70 [to claim Social Security benefits]. Only 10.2% appear to do so." The researchers added that "virtually all American workers age 45 to 62 should wait beyond age 65 to collect."

The bottom line is that there's no perfect claiming age for everyone. But it does look like most of us would do well to delaying claiming until age 70, if we can. Do weigh recent and potential future actions in Washington, though, as you deliberate.

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