A few years into my TV career, a viewer named Linda called the station. Her husband had just turned 62 and wanted to file for Social Security the next morning. She was furious.
“He says he wants his money before the government runs out,” she told me. “I told him he’s leaving thousands on the table. Tell him I’m right, Stacy.”
I told her she probably was — but I also told her the answer wasn’t that simple. It rarely is.
Here’s the deal. Social Security isn’t designed to reward early filers or punish late ones. The system is built so that, if you live an average lifespan, you collect roughly the same total either way.
Claim early, get smaller checks for longer. Claim late, get bigger checks for fewer years. The math is mostly a wash.
The problem is, you don’t know your lifespan. Neither do I. So you’re forced to make a permanent decision based on educated guesses about your health, your genetics, your spouse, your job, and your savings.
Most people get it wrong. According to Social Security Administration data reported by Savvy Senior, in 2024, 23.3% of women and 22% of men signed up for Social Security at 62. That’s the worst possible age to file for most people, and yet it remains the single most popular claiming age.
Here are the six things to weigh before you file.
1. Know your full retirement age
Your full retirement age, or FRA, is the age you can collect 100% of your earned benefit. For anyone born in 1960 or later, that’s 67. For people born between 1955 and 1959, it’s somewhere between 66 and 67.
Claim before FRA and your benefit gets cut, permanently. According to the Social Security Administration, if your full retirement age is 67 and you sign up at 62, you would only get about 70% of your full benefit. That’s a 30% pay cut for life.
Claim after FRA and the opposite happens. The SSA adds 8% per year up until age 70 — a guaranteed return that’s hard to find anywhere else in the financial world.
2. Run the break-even math
The simplest version: If you claim at 62 versus 70, you’d typically need to live into your late 70s or early 80s for the lifetime totals to even out. Live longer than that and waiting wins. Die sooner and claiming early wins.
Bankrate’s analysis put the break-even between filing at 62 and 70 at roughly age 78. Most planning calculators will run a customized version for you. Use one.
3. Factor in your health and family longevity
This is the part nobody wants to talk about. If your parents both died in their 70s and you’ve got a heart condition, claiming early may genuinely be the right call. There’s no medal for waiting until 70 and then collecting two checks before you’re gone.
Conversely, if your grandmother lived to 96 and you’re in great shape at 65, you should be very, very slow to claim early. People underestimate longevity constantly.
Quick aside — most internet financial advice comes from people who weren’t alive during the last recession. I’ve been writing about money for more than 40 years. Want rock-solid advice? Sign up for the free Money Talks Newsletter. Takes 10 seconds. No fluff. No spam.
4. Think about your spouse — especially if you’re the higher earner
Here’s where most claiming decisions go sideways.
If you’re the higher-earning spouse, your filing age sets the floor for your spouse’s eventual survivor benefit. Claim early and lock in a smaller check, and when you die, your widow or widower is stuck with that smaller amount for the rest of their life.
For couples, the conventional advice is for the higher earner to wait as long as possible — even all the way to 70 — and the lower earner to claim earlier if needed. This maximizes lifetime household income for the surviving spouse.
There’s more nuance to spousal and survivor benefits, and our guide to Social Security rules most Americans get wrong walks through several of the trickier ones.
5. Watch the earnings test if you’re still working
If you claim before your full retirement age and keep working, the SSA will withhold part of your benefit if you earn above a certain threshold. The money isn’t gone forever — it gets credited back later — but it’s a real headache and frequently surprises people.
Once you hit FRA, the earnings test disappears. You can earn whatever you want.
6. Don’t claim out of fear
Here’s the one that bothers me most. The Social Security trust funds aren’t running out tomorrow. According to the program’s own trustees, the surplus is currently projected to be depleted around 2033, although that was recently revised to 2032.
After that, payroll taxes would still cover roughly three-quarters of scheduled benefits unless Congress acts — and Congress almost certainly will, because politicians who let Social Security checks get cut don’t keep their jobs.
But fear is driving claims. AARP, citing Urban Institute analysis, reported that from January through July 2025, more than 2.3 million people filed for Social Security retirement benefits, up 16% from the same period in 2024.
Many of those filers are leaving real money on the table because they’re scared the system might collapse.
Don’t be one of them. Claim because the math works for you, not because you’re panicking.
The Social Security decision is one of the most consequential financial choices you’ll ever make. As MTN’s breakdown of claiming at 62, 67, and 70 makes clear, the right answer is different for everyone.
And if you want to dispel some of the lingering confusion, our list of the Social Security myths that can cost you in retirement is worth a look.
Linda’s husband, by the way, ended up waiting until 67. They’re both 76 now and still cashing checks over 40% bigger than the ones he wanted to start at 62. Linda was right.
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