When claiming Social Security, the best financial move you can make is to wait until age 70.
That’s the gold-standard advice from experts, who point to the substantial annual increase in your benefit for each year you delay claiming it after you reach what the government calls your full retirement age, either 66 or 67. Add Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment, and waiting till 70 to maximize your payout is the best of all retirement bets.
There’s just one catch: Hardly anyone takes that advice.
In 2024, just 8 percent of men and 8.6 percent of women who filed new claims had held off until that age to max out their benefits, according to the Social Security Administration. More than 90 percent of all new claims were filed by people younger than 70 that year.
Instead of waiting as long as they can to increase their benefits, many workers grab their government cash at age 62, the age at which anyone is old enough to qualify. But filing four to five years before full retirement age means their checks take a big, permanent hit.
Why give up the best inflation-protected annuity a retiree can get? Most early filers simply can’t afford to wait, or think they can’t afford to wait, or think waiting won’t make enough of a difference to their finances. And the few who can tend to be healthier and wealthier than their contemporaries, said David Blanchett, head of retirement research for Prudential Financial.
“For most people, it doesn’t matter what you tell them,” Mr. Blanchett said. “Lots of retirees are just trying to get by with what they’ve got. They don’t have a choice.”
Still, it’s worth exploring when to claim your benefits, even if it’s a bit complicated. Here is a primer.
Why people don’t wait
The amount of money you get from Social Security each month depends on when you start receiving benefits.
If you were born after 1960, your full retirement age is 67. Wait longer, and your benefit rises by 8 percent a year until age 70.
But if you claim Social Security “early,” or before your full retirement age, your payment is reduced, often drastically. Claiming at 62 results in your payment being slashed by 35 percent from the full retirement age benefit. The reduction shrinks each year until your full retirement age. Claiming early also means that any income you earn above a set limit results in part of your benefits being temporarily withheld until you reach full retirement age. While there are limited options to withdraw or pause to reset your benefits, you should consider your initial choice to be permanent.
There are understandable reasons people cannot wait. Ruth Finkelstein, executive director of the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College, said many people who claim benefits at 62 have been out of work or underemployed for years.
“The mass of people who ‘retire’ between 50 and 62 were pushed out of the workplace or had to leave because of someone in the family with health concerns,” Ms. Finkelstein said. “They’ve been holding on until 62.”
About 40 percent of retirees get more than half of their retirement income from Social Security, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. About 13 percent depend entirely on their benefits.
And there’s a fear factor: According to Schroders’ 2025 U.S. Retirement Survey, more than one-third of non-retired Americans say they worry that the Social Security program will run out of money. That worry is based on federal estimates that by 2033, the program trust fund can afford to pay only 77 percent of all scheduled benefits.
So why do so many experts still recommend waiting until age 70?
“This guidance is directed toward retirees who have the assets to actually delay claiming and who are in decent enough health to actively consider it,” Mr. Blanchett said.
Another consideration is life expectancy, Ms. Finkelstein said.
“If the average life expectancy for people like yourself is around 72 years of age and someone says, ‘Start claiming when you’re 70,’ it’s hard for that to make sense. You’re not going to collect much from Social Security.”
The break even point: What is it?
One calculation people often consider is when they’ll “break even” by delaying their benefits. That’s the age when the total amount of money they would receive by waiting to claim at age 70 is more than the total amount they would have accumulated if they claimed their benefits earlier. There are many online Social Security calculators, charts and analyses that look at the numbers.
For example: Someone who would receive a $3,000 monthly benefit at their full retirement age of 67 would receive $3,720 per month by waiting until 70. The amount received by waiting until age 70 wouldn’t total more than claiming at 67 until 15 years later, when that person turned 82.
Financial planners and others discourage people from viewing Social Security through that lens, because it warps the notion of benefits as lifetime guaranteed income. The risk of outliving your money won’t emerge for many retirees until they are in their 90s, and maximizing your benefits creates a larger safety net for later in life.
The break-even age was still part of the consideration for Blair Barondes, 64, of Northampton, Mass., a retired marketing executive, and his wife, Janet Bowdan, 62, a retired professor. Right now, they live on income from their savings and an inheritance. Mr. Barondes will claim Social Security when he turns 65 in March, and Ms. Bowdan plans to claim her benefits at 63 or 64.
“The break-even point on what we lose in Social Security, if we waited for a couple of years, would be when I’m 83, and the difference per month is not going to change one bit how we live,” Mr. Barondes said.
Another consideration, he said: Even if they have other earned income, at least 15 percent of Social Security benefits are untaxed, while withdrawals from their individual retirement accounts are fully taxable.
Squeezing the juice from life
Two other reasons for claiming before age 70: the state of your health and your career.
A bout with breast cancer in her early 50s prompted Jennifer Johnson, a nurse in Austin, Texas, and her husband, Royce Johnson, a biomedical scientist, both 67, to decide that it was time for adventure.
“We both wanted to go sailing,” Ms. Johnson said.
The couple bought a catamaran in 2011, but continued working until 2013, when, at age 55, they sold their house, gave most of their furniture to their children and moved onto the boat in Florida, she said.
For the next 10 years, the couple lived on the 42-foot boat, sailing mainly in the Western Caribbean. They lived on income from investments until Ms. Johnson claimed her civil service and military pensions at 60. Both claimed Social Security benefits at age 62.
“We said, ‘We’re doing what we’re doing,’” Mr. Johnson recalled. “It made more sense to take Social Security right away.”
Burnout is another real concern, especially when the industry you work in has changed drastically. That was Gail Donnelly Bader’s experience.
“Social Security saved my sanity. I was miserable,” said Ms. Donnelly Bader, 71, who retired from her solo legal practice in Illinois in 2015. “I told my husband, ‘If you don’t let me retire, I’m going to kill somebody.”
Ms. Donnelly Bader had no pension, but did have an I.R.A. she didn’t want to tap right away. Her husband, Doug Bader, continued working, and claimed benefits at his full retirement age and worked for about two years before retiring from his job as a Missouri court administrator in 2020.
Before quitting work, Ms. Donnelly Bader socked away income, using it to live on for just a couple years, until her 62nd birthday.
“As soon as I was eligible, I took Social Security,” she said. “I certainly wouldn’t have waited until 70.”
How to know when to claim
Experts say that most people approaching retirement will fall into one of these scenarios. Here is what they say you should think about if you are:
Healthy and wealthy: If you (and a spouse) are in the lucky minority of retirees who are healthy with more than adequate savings — especially if you have enough that you’re worried about tax consequences — then delay claiming Social Security until 70 and spend down your I.R.A. or other tax-deferred retirement accounts first to reduce your tax bite.
Healthy and not-so wealthy: If you (and a spouse) are healthy but worry that you don’t have enough money saved to cover a potential 30-year retirement, the unwelcome advice is to work as long as you can and delay claiming Social Security as long as you can. You want to maximize your benefits in your late 80s and beyond.
Miserable: If your job has become untenable, or you’re still craving adventure at middle age, claiming Social Security can be a bridge to a new life by allowing you to preserve other savings or retirement investments. Plan carefully, take stock of other resources (income from a spouse, home equity or other assets) and make peace with the idea that you may need to live frugally or return to work at least part time.
Not-so healthy: If you’re battling illness and your years look short, claim Social Security when you stop working. There’s no point in waiting until age 70 if there’s a very real possibility you won’t live past 80.
In no way wealthy: If you’re scraping by or were pushed out of a job after turning 50, you may have no choice but to claim your Social Security benefits as soon as you turn 62.
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