If you’re approaching retirement, one of the biggest financial choices you’ll face is when to start collecting Social Security. The answer isn’t the same for everyone, and the stakes are high. Your claiming age permanently affects the size of your monthly check, your total lifetime benefits, and potentially what your spouse receives after you’re gone. With the full retirement age now set at 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later, understanding how the system works in 2026 is more important than ever.
Full Retirement Age Hits 67
Your full retirement age, or FRA, is the age at which you’re entitled to 100% of your Social Security benefit based on your lifetime earnings. For decades, FRA was 65. Congress changed that in 1983, gradually raising the age to keep pace with longer lifespans and to shore up the program’s finances. If you were born between 1943 and 1954, your FRA was 66. For those born between 1955 and 1959, it increased by two months for each birth year. And now, for everyone born in 1960 or later, FRA has reached its highest point under current law at age 67.
This matters because FRA is the benchmark the Social Security Administration uses to calculate whether you’ll receive more or less than your full benefit. You can claim as early as 62 or as late as 70, but your monthly payment will be permanently adjusted depending on how far from 67 you file. If you’re turning 66 in 2026, you’re part of the first group to face the full weight of this change, and it fundamentally shifts the math around when to start collecting.
The Cost of Claiming Early
You’re eligible to start receiving Social Security at age 62, but doing so comes with a steep and permanent reduction. If your FRA is 67 and you claim five years early, your monthly benefit drops by 30%. That’s not a temporary adjustment. It’s locked in for life, with only annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) added on top. For someone entitled to $2,000 per month at 67, claiming at 62 would shrink that check to just $1,400 per month.
The reduction isn’t applied evenly across those five years, either. For each of the first 36 months you claim before FRA, your benefit is reduced by 5/9 of 1% per month. For any additional months beyond 36, the reduction is 5/12 of 1% per month. So claiming at 63 costs you about 25% of your full benefit, while claiming at 64 costs roughly 20%. Each year closer to 67 that you wait preserves more of your full payment. For many retirees, especially those who expect to live into their 80s, claiming early means leaving significant money on the table over the course of a lifetime.
There are situations where early claiming makes sense. If you’re in poor health and don’t expect to live well past your late 70s, collecting sooner means you’ll receive more total dollars before the break-even point. If you’ve lost your job and have no other income, Social Security at 62 can be a financial lifeline. But it’s critical to understand that the reduction is irreversible. You can’t claim at 62 and then bump up to your full benefit at 67.
Why Waiting Until 70 Pays Off
If you delay claiming past your FRA of 67, you earn delayed retirement credits worth 8% per year, or about 2/3 of 1% for every month you wait. By age 70, that adds up to a 24% permanent increase over your full benefit. Using the same $2,000 example, your monthly check would rise to $2,480 at 70. There’s no additional benefit for waiting past 70, so that’s the ceiling.
The difference between claiming at 62 and claiming at 70 is dramatic. Someone who would receive $1,400 at 62 could instead receive $2,480 at 70, a 77% higher monthly payment. Over a long retirement, that gap translates into tens of thousands of dollars. The Social Security Administration published the 2026 maximum benefits for these key ages: $2,969 per month at 62, and $5,181 per month at 70, though those maximums require a career of earnings at or above the taxable wage cap for at least 35 years. The average retiree receives about $2,064 per month in 2026, well below those ceilings.
Delaying works especially well if you’re still employed in your 60s, if you have savings or a pension to cover expenses while you wait, or if longevity runs in your family. It’s essentially purchasing a larger guaranteed income stream for the rest of your life, one that’s adjusted for inflation through annual COLAs.
Understanding Break-Even Ages
The break-even age is the point at which the total benefits you’ve collected by waiting surpass what you would have received by claiming earlier. It’s one of the most useful tools for deciding when to file. If you claim at 62, you’ll collect checks for five extra years compared to someone who waits until 67. But those checks are 30% smaller. Over time, the higher monthly payments from waiting eventually overtake the head start.
Here’s how the break-even math typically works for someone with an FRA of 67. If you compare claiming at 62 versus 67, the cumulative benefits cross over at roughly age 78 to 79. If you compare claiming at 62 versus 70, the break-even point falls around age 80 to 81. And if you’re deciding between 67 and 70, you’d need to live to about 82 or 83 for the delay to pay off. These are approximate figures because individual benefit amounts, COLAs, taxes, and investment returns on early benefits can shift the numbers slightly.
The practical takeaway is straightforward. If you’re in good health and have a reasonable expectation of living past 80, delaying your claim will likely result in more total income over your lifetime. If your health is poor or you have reasons to believe your lifespan may be shorter, claiming earlier could be the smarter move. Average life expectancy for a 65-year-old in the United States is roughly 84 for men and 87 for women, which puts the majority of retirees past the break-even threshold.
Working While Collecting Benefits
If you claim Social Security before your FRA and continue working, your benefits may be temporarily reduced through the earnings test. In 2026, if you’re under FRA for the entire year, Social Security withholds $1 for every $2 you earn above $24,480. In the year you reach FRA, the formula is more generous: $1 withheld for every $3 earned above $65,160, and only earnings before your birthday month count. Once you hit FRA, there’s no earnings limit at all. You can earn as much as you want without any reduction.
Here’s the good news that many people miss. The money withheld through the earnings test isn’t gone forever. When you reach FRA, Social Security recalculates your benefit to credit you for the months in which benefits were withheld. So if you claimed at 62 but had 12 months of checks withheld due to high earnings, your monthly payment gets bumped up at 67 as if you’d claimed a year later. It doesn’t fully undo the early-claiming reduction, but it does recover some of the lost benefit. If you plan to keep working full time in your early 60s, this is an important factor to weigh before filing.
Couples Need a Joint Strategy
If you’re married, your claiming decision doesn’t just affect you. It affects your spouse, potentially for decades. A spouse can receive up to 50% of your benefit at FRA, and after one spouse dies, the surviving partner can collect up to 100% of the deceased spouse’s benefit instead of their own, whichever is higher. This is why financial planners often recommend that the higher earner delay as long as possible, ideally to age 70. Doing so locks in the largest possible survivor benefit for the spouse who lives longer.
For couples where one partner earned significantly more than the other, this strategy is especially powerful. The lower earner might claim their own benefit early and then switch to a survivor benefit later if the higher earner passes away first. Since women statistically outlive men and often have lower lifetime earnings, this dynamic frequently comes into play. It’s also worth noting that divorced spouses who were married for at least 10 years may be eligible for benefits based on their ex-spouse’s earnings record, as long as they haven’t remarried.
These spousal and survivor benefits are a critical piece of the retirement puzzle that’s easy to overlook when you’re focused solely on your own claiming age. The timing decision of the higher earner can permanently shape the surviving spouse’s income for the rest of their life. In many households, especially where one spouse earned significantly less, the survivor benefit can become the primary source of income after one partner passes away.
The Trust Fund and Your Benefits
You’ve probably heard concerns about Social Security running out of money. Here’s what’s actually happening. The program’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is projected to be depleted by late 2032, according to the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary. This timeline was moved up from 2033 after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, reduced the tax revenue flowing into the trust fund by offering seniors a new temporary $6,000 deduction (per person) on their federal income taxes. That deduction runs through 2028 and benefits most retirees, but it comes with a trade-off for the program’s long-term health.
Depletion doesn’t mean Social Security disappears. Even after the trust fund is exhausted, ongoing payroll tax revenue would still cover roughly 77% to 81% of scheduled benefits. But without congressional action, that gap would mean an automatic across-the-board cut of about 24% for all beneficiaries. Most policy experts believe Congress will intervene before that happens, given how politically unpopular benefit cuts would be. Still, the uncertainty is real. For people deciding when to claim, this is worth considering alongside your health, savings, and personal financial needs.
Conclusion
Choosing when to claim Social Security is one of the most consequential financial decisions you’ll make in retirement. The difference between filing at 62 and waiting until 70 can mean hundreds of dollars more (or less) in your monthly check for the rest of your life. There’s no single right answer. Your health, your savings, whether you’re still working, and whether you have a spouse who depends on your earnings record all play a role. Take the time to review your personalized benefit estimates through your my Social Security account at ssa.gov, run the break-even math for your specific situation, and consider speaking with a financial advisor before you file.
Just as Social Security forms the foundation of your retirement income, Medicare forms the foundation of your healthcare coverage. The two programs are closely linked, and understanding how they work together is essential to protecting both your finances and your well-being in retirement. Medicare eligibility begins at 65, which means if you retire before that age, you’ll need a plan to bridge the gap in health coverage. Choosing the right Medicare plan can be just as impactful as choosing the right Social Security claiming age. For more information about Medicare, please call 866-633-4427 to speak with a Senior Healthcare Solutions Medicare expert.
