Statistics Say: This Is the Best Age to Claim Social Security (But Is It Best for You?)

As you approach retirement, you should be thinking about when you’ll claim your Social Security benefits — because when you do so can make a big difference in your financial life.

Various studies have pinpointed the best age for most people to claim, but there is no one perfect age for everyone. Read on for a Social Security refresher and a look at what studies suggest.

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Each of us has a “full retirement age” at which we can start collecting the “full” benefits to which we’re entitled based on our earnings. But we can start collecting as early as age 62, or we can delay, up to age 70.

Claiming early means you’ll receive smaller benefit checks — but many more of them. Delay beyond your full retirement age, and your benefit checks will grow by about 8% per year up to age 70.

Researchers seem to agree that most people will get the most out of Social Security by delaying claiming until age 70.

For example, a 2019 study, “The Retirement Solution Hiding in Plain Sight: How Much Retirees Would Gain by Improving Social Security Decisions,” from United Income, found that:

• Millions of people claim their benefits too early — leaving trillions of dollars in potential total Social Security benefits on the table — an average of $111,000 per household.

• The average retiree would collect about 9% more retirement income from Social Security if they claimed their benefits at an optimal age.

• Only 4% of retirees seem to have claimed their benefits at the best time.

More recently, a 2022 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research offered this:

We find that virtually all American workers age 45 to 62 should wait beyond age 65 to collect. More than 90% should wait till age 70. Only 10.2% appear to do so. The median loss for this age group in the present value of household lifetime discretionary spending is $182,370.

That’s the best age for most people, but not all people. Here are some (of many) considerations to help you decide your own best age to claim Social Security benefits.

• How soon you need the income: A very common reason to claim early is simply because you need that income pronto.

• Your health: If you’re likely to live a longer-than-average life, try to delay claiming. If the opposite is true, claiming early can make sense.

• Inflation: If you’re worried about inflation, you might want to delay claiming, to maximize your benefits and your nearly annual cost of living adjustments (COLAs).

• Your investments: If you claim your benefits early, that can help you to not tap your nest egg as much, permitting it to grow more. Delaying claiming can have you depleting your nest egg faster if you’re not working — though it will also result in bigger checks.

• Social Security’s stability: Social Security is not exactly running out of money, but it is facing a shortfall in the coming years. If nothing is done to strengthen Social Security (and there are multiple ways to do so), within a decade, benefits will shrink by around 20% to 25%.