The Social Security Decision Most People Get Wrong, and How It Costs Them $100,000
Henry Supinski, ChFC® · 4 min read · April 2026
When to claim Social Security is one of the most consequential financial decisions you'll make in retirement. Yet most people spend less than an hour on it. Here's what the research says, and why waiting usually wins.
The Basic Trade-Off
You can claim Social Security as early as age 62 or as late as 70. Every year you wait past your Full Retirement Age (FRA), your benefit grows by roughly 8% in delayed retirement credits, up to age 70. Those credits are set by law, and the benefit they build is adjusted for inflation for the rest of your life. Very few retirement decisions come with terms that clear.
Why Most People Claim Early, and Regret It
The most common reason people claim early is fear: fear the program will run dry, fear they'll die before they break even, fear of leaving money on the table. Most of these fears are overstated. The break-even point for waiting is typically around age 80, and most Americans live well past that.
The Coordination Angle
For married couples, the coordination of claiming strategies can add hundreds of thousands in lifetime income. The optimal strategy depends on both spouses' benefit amounts, ages, and health, and it's almost never the one that feels most intuitive.
What Claiming at 62 Really Costs
Claiming before your full retirement age permanently reduces your monthly benefit. Not temporarily. Permanently. The reduction follows you for life, and every future cost of living adjustment compounds on the smaller base. It also follows your spouse. When one member of a couple dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits. If the higher earner claimed early, the survivor lives with that reduced check for what could be decades. The claiming decision is not just about you. It sets the floor for the person who outlives you.
A Worked Example
A hypothetical with round numbers. Suppose your benefit at a full retirement age of 67 would be $3,000 per month. Claim at 62 and the permanent reduction brings that to roughly $2,100. Wait until 70 and delayed retirement credits push it to roughly $3,700. The spread between the earliest and latest claim is about $1,600 per month, around $19,000 per year, adjusted for inflation, for life. Live twenty years past 70 and the difference in cumulative income is where six figure claiming mistakes come from. Your actual numbers will differ. Pull your statement at ssa.gov and look at your own three figures before deciding anything.
When Claiming Early Makes Sense
Waiting is not a universal answer. Claiming early can be reasonable when health issues shorten your realistic planning horizon, when you need the income now and the alternative is debt or selling investments at a bad time, or when a lower earning spouse claims early while the higher earner delays. The point is not that early is wrong. The point is that early should be a decision made with the numbers in front of you, not a default made at the Social Security office in an afternoon.
How We Approach It
The claiming decision connects to everything else. The years between retirement and claiming are often the same low income years that make Roth conversions attractive, and spending from the portfolio while you delay changes the withdrawal math. We model the combinations inside one plan rather than deciding each piece alone. How your benefit gets taxed also depends on your other income, so it is worth a conversation with your tax professional before you file. If you want to pressure test your own timeline first, the Retirement Hub has a free retirement readiness calculator.
Questions We Hear
Will Social Security still be there when I retire?
The trust fund reserves are projected to be depleted in the next decade or so if Congress does nothing. Even in that scenario, ongoing payroll taxes would still fund the large majority of scheduled benefits. Reform of some kind is likely before then. Claiming early out of fear locks in a permanent reduction to guard against a partial one. That trade rarely makes sense on its own.
What is the break-even age for waiting?
For most people it falls somewhere around age 80. Die before it and claiming early would have paid more in total. Live past it and waiting wins, with the gap widening every year after. Since a healthy 65 year old has a real chance of reaching their late 80s or 90s, longevity risk usually argues for patience.
Can I change my mind after I claim?
Within the first 12 months you can withdraw your application, repay what you received, and reset as if you never claimed. After that, once you reach full retirement age you can suspend your benefit and earn delayed credits again. Both options exist, but neither is a clean undo. It is better to get the decision right the first time.
Does working while collecting reduce my benefit?
Before full retirement age, yes. An earnings test temporarily withholds part of your benefit if your work income exceeds an annual threshold. The withheld amounts are credited back later, so the money is not gone forever, but the interaction surprises people who claim early and keep working. After full retirement age the earnings test goes away.