Social Security Claiming Comparator
The age you claim changes your monthly check for the rest of your life. Compare 62, 67, and 70 side by side.
Compare Your Three Claiming Ages
Enter your estimated monthly benefit at full retirement age (FRA) — you can find it on your statement at ssa.gov/myaccount. For anyone born in 1960 or later, FRA is 67, and the percentages below are set by statute: claiming at 62 pays about 70% of your FRA benefit, and waiting to 70 earns delayed retirement credits of 8% per year, reaching about 124%.
Live figures are temporarily unavailable. The statutory percentages below still work — they are set by law, not by annual figures.
About break-even: claiming early means more checks, delaying means bigger checks. For most people the cumulative totals cross somewhere around age ~80–82 — live longer than that and delaying usually comes out ahead; a shorter horizon favors claiming earlier. Health, family longevity, spousal benefits, other income, and taxes all matter more than any single break-even number.
Where these percentages come from: the ~70% early-claiming factor and the 8%-per-year delayed retirement credits are statutory formulas in the Social Security Act for workers with an FRA of 67 (born 1960 or later) — they are not projections or estimates by this site. Your exact percentage varies slightly by birth month, and claiming while working before FRA can temporarily reduce benefits under the earnings test.
Related reading: Retirement Planning · Provisional Income · Sequence of Returns Risk
Claiming Is One Piece of a Bigger Income Plan
The best claiming age depends on your other income sources, taxes, and spousal benefits. A free conversation can put the pieces side by side.
Start the Conversation