How Social Security Changes With Your Claim Age
Your statement shows one number: the monthly benefit at full retirement age, your PIA. Claim earlier and SSA cuts it for every month you are early: 5/9 of 1% a month for the first 36 months, 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond (ssa.gov). With a full retirement age of 67, claiming at 62 is 60 months early, a 30% cut. Claim later and you earn delayed credits of 8% a year up to 70 (ssa.gov), 24% more for three years.
On a $2,000 PIA, born 1964: $1,400 a month at 62, $2,000 at 67, $2,480 at 70. The 70 check is 77% bigger than the 62 one, for life, and it rises with inflation every year.
What Break-Even Means, and What It Leaves Out
Claiming early gets you more checks; claiming late gets you bigger ones. The break-even age is when the bigger checks have caught up in total. On the default, 62 vs 67 breaks even at 78.7, 67 vs 70 at 82.5 and 62 vs 70 at 80.4. Live past it and waiting paid more. Invest the early checks at 3% after inflation instead of spending them and 62 vs 70 moves to 84.4.
Three things the break-even leaves out. Longevity: a 62-year-old has a fair chance of reaching the late 80s, past every break-even here, and the risk that costs money is living long, not dying early. A spouse: the survivor keeps the larger check, so the higher earner's delay protects two lives. Taxes: up to 85% of benefits can be taxable, and how much depends on your withdrawals. The Fire Planner with US taxes on computes the taxable share every year.
Claim at 62, 67 or 70? A Table
Total benefits received by each age, in today's dollars, on a $2,000 PIA, born 1964. The largest total at each age is in bold.
| By age | Claim at 62 | Claim at 67 | Claim at 70 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 75 | $218,400 | $192,000 | $148,800 |
| 80 | $302,400 | $312,000 | $297,600 |
| 85 | $386,400 | $432,000 | $446,400 |
| 90 | $470,400 | $552,000 | $595,200 |
Claiming at 62 leads until about 79. By 90, claiming at 70 has paid about $124,800 more. If you can live on savings in your 60s, waiting is usually the better deal.
Where to Find Your PIA
Sign in to my Social Security and open your statement. It lists your monthly benefit at full retirement age; enter that figure above. The statement assumes you keep earning what you earn now until you claim. If you retire early, the years of zero earnings lower it. With US taxes on and no benefit typed, the Fire Planner estimates your PIA from your salary on SSA's formula and counts the years after you retire as zero.
Which Calculator Do You Need?
| Your question | Calculator |
|---|---|
| How long will my money last? | Retirement withdrawal calculator |
| How often does my plan survive 500 random markets? | Monte Carlo retirement calculator |
| Should I claim Social Security at 62, 67 or 70? | This page |
| How do I get to my 401(k) before 59½? | Roth conversion ladder calculator |
| How much do I need, and when do I get there? | FIRE calculator |
| I have a target in mind. When do I reach it? | When Can I Retire? |
| Just the number, from my spending | FIRE number calculator |
| Can I stop saving and let it grow? | Coast FIRE calculator |
| What if I keep working part-time? | Barista FIRE calculator |
| Retiring on a tight budget | Lean FIRE calculator |
| Retiring on $100,000+ a year | Fat FIRE calculator |
| My whole plan: income, taxes, a crash in year one | Fire Planner (Monte Carlo + backtesting) |
Frequently Asked Questions
It is a useful number, not the whole decision. Break-even tells you how long you need to live for waiting to pay more in total. The bigger question is insurance: claiming at 70 buys the largest inflation-adjusted income for life, which matters most if you live to 95 and your savings don't. If you are in poor health or need the money now, 62 can be the right call. The Bogleheads Social Security wiki page treats delaying as buying an inflation-protected annuity, which is the better frame for most people with savings to bridge the gap.
Before full retirement age, SSA's earnings test withholds part of your benefit if your wages pass a yearly limit. It isn't lost: SSA raises your benefit at full retirement age to pay it back. From full retirement age on there is no limit. This calculator leaves the earnings test out, so if you will still be working at 62, treat the 62 figures as an upper bound.
A spouse can get up to half the other's benefit at full retirement age, reduced if claimed early, with no delayed credits past it. The bigger lever is the survivor benefit: when one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two checks. That makes the higher earner's delay worth more than this single-person break-even shows. The Fire Planner with US taxes on models both partners' claims and the spousal top-up.
Yes, by working in today's dollars. Benefits rise with the CPI every year, so a benefit stays flat in real terms and every figure here is in today's money. That is also why the default return is 0%: comparing plain sums of real dollars is the standard break-even. Set a return if you would invest early checks instead of spending them; it pushes the break-even later.
Up to 85% of your benefit can be federal taxable income, depending on your other income, and a few states tax it too. This calculator compares benefits before tax. The Fire Planner with US taxes on computes the taxable share every year alongside your withdrawals and Roth conversions.
It depends on your birth year: 66 for 1943 to 1954, rising two months a year to 67 for 1960 and later (SSA's full retirement age table). Born 1958, it is 66 and 8 months. Type your birth year above and the calculator shows yours and uses it for the middle claim age.
The result button opens the Fire Planner with your benefit, claim age and birth year, and US taxes on. The planner then pays the benefit from that age, month by month, next to your savings, spending and taxes, and grades whether the money lasts. It uses the same SSA claim factors as this page. Free, no sign-up. No account. The planner runs in your browser and your plan is saved there, not on our servers.