When should you claim Social Security? 62 vs full retirement age vs 70
You can start Social Security retirement benefits any month from 62 to 70. Claim early and your check is permanently reduced. Wait past full retirement age and it permanently grows. The right age depends on your health, your other income, and how long you expect to collect.
There is no single best age to claim Social Security. Age 62 gets you money sooner but locks in a smaller check for life. Your full retirement age (66 to 67, depending on your birth year) pays your primary benefit in full. Waiting to 70 earns the largest possible check through delayed retirement credits. The tradeoff comes down to how many years you expect to collect and whether you can afford to wait.
The three anchor ages
Social Security lets you claim in any month across an eight-year window, but three ages anchor the decision because the rules change at each one.
Age 62: the earliest you can claim
62 is the first month most workers can start retirement benefits. The appeal is obvious: money now, and eight fewer years of waiting. The cost is a permanent reduction. If your full retirement age is 67, claiming at 62 cuts your monthly benefit by 30 percent, and that lower amount is what you receive for the rest of your life, plus future cost-of-living adjustments applied to the reduced base.
Full retirement age: your benefit in full
Your full retirement age, or FRA, is the age at which the Social Security Administration pays 100 percent of your primary insurance amount, with no reduction and no credit. FRA is set by your birth year. For anyone born in 1960 or later it is 67. For birth years 1955 through 1959 it steps up in two-month increments from 66 and 2 months to 66 and 10 months.
| Year of birth | Full retirement age |
|---|---|
| 1943–1954 | 66 |
| 1955 | 66 and 2 months |
| 1956 | 66 and 4 months |
| 1957 | 66 and 6 months |
| 1958 | 66 and 8 months |
| 1959 | 66 and 10 months |
| 1960 and later | 67 |
Age 70: the largest possible check
If you delay past your full retirement age, the SSA adds delayed retirement credits of 8 percent per year, accrued monthly, up to age 70. With an FRA of 67, waiting until 70 raises your check by 24 percent above the full amount. There is no benefit to waiting past 70, so 70 is the ceiling. Delaying beyond it only forgoes checks you could already be collecting.
A worked example at a $2,000 full benefit
Take someone born in 1962, so their FRA is 67 and their full benefit is $2,000 a month. Claiming at 62 drops the check to about $1,400 (a 30 percent cut). Claiming at FRA pays the full $2,000. Waiting to 70 raises it to about $2,480 (a 24 percent increase). That is a spread of more than $1,000 a month, for the same worker, from timing alone.
What actually decides the answer
The monthly numbers are only half the picture. A larger check is only worth more if you collect it long enough to make up for the checks you skipped while waiting. Three factors settle it.
How long you expect to collect
This is the single biggest input. If you live well into your eighties or beyond, waiting almost always produces more total dollars because the bigger check compounds over many years. If your health or family history points to a shorter retirement, claiming earlier often wins because you collect for more of the years you actually have. No one knows their own longevity, which is why the honest approach is to reason about the range rather than pretend to a single number. See our guide on the break-even age for how to estimate the crossover.
Whether you can afford to wait
Delaying only helps if you can cover your expenses in the meantime. If you have savings, a pension, or part-time income to bridge the years from 62 to 67 or 70, waiting is a real option. If Social Security is your only source of income and you have stopped working, claiming earlier may simply be necessary, and that is a legitimate reason regardless of the math.
Whether you are married
For couples, the higher earner's claiming age does double duty: it sets that person's own check and, after the first death, it sets the survivor benefit the widow or widower keeps for life. That makes delaying the higher earner's benefit one of the most durable ways to protect a surviving spouse. Our guide on spousal and survivor timing covers this in detail.
A simple way to frame the decision
Most people fall into one of a few situations:
- Good health, other income, want the most for life: waiting toward 70 usually produces the largest lifetime benefit and the strongest survivor protection.
- Shorter life expectancy or need the money now: claiming at or near 62 lets you collect during the years you are most likely to have, and there is nothing wrong with that.
- Somewhere in between: full retirement age is the neutral middle, with no reduction and no forgone credits, and it is a perfectly reasonable default.
The one thing to avoid is claiming early purely by default, without ever seeing the tradeoff. A large share of people do exactly that, and for many of them a short wait would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars over a long retirement.
The short version
62 pays less, sooner, and forever. Full retirement age pays your benefit in full. 70 pays the most. If you expect a long retirement and can afford to wait, delaying tends to win. If you expect a shorter one or need the income now, claiming earlier tends to win. The only wrong move is not looking at your own numbers before you file.
Sources
- SSA, Full Retirement Age and benefit reduction. The full retirement age schedule by birth year and the reduction for claiming early.
- SSA, Delayed Retirement Credits. The 8 percent per year added for delaying past FRA, capped at 70.
- SSA, Early or Late Retirement. The 5/9 and 5/12 of one percent monthly reduction formula.
Related guides
See these ages run against your own benefit.
The report applies the same 62-to-70 comparison to your full retirement benefit, your birth year, and your longevity view, and names the age that leaves you the most.
Get your Social Security Timing Report · $19