Social Security Estimator

If you are in reasonable health, have savings to live on in the meantime, and especially if you are the higher earner in a marriage, waiting until 70 usually pays the most. Claiming at 62 pays 70% of your full benefit for life if your full retirement age is 67; waiting to 70 pays 124% (SSA). That is a 77% larger check, adjusted for inflation every year, for the rest of your life and, if you are married, for the rest of your spouse's.

Full retirement age is 66 for people born in 1943 through 1954, rises by two months a year for those born 1955 through 1959, and is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Each month you claim before it cuts the benefit by 5/9 of 1% for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond. Each month you wait after it adds 2/3 of 1%, or 8% a year, until 70. Nothing is gained by waiting past 70.

Your own benefit as a share of your primary insurance amount (PIA); the spousal benefit as a share of the worker's PIA, by the spouse's claiming age. Spousal benefits stop growing at full retirement age.

The break-even ages

Ignoring investment returns and taxes, total benefits from claiming at 70 overtake claiming at 62 at about age 80, and overtake claiming at 67 at about 82 and a half. Claiming at 67 overtakes 62 at about 79. Cost-of-living adjustments raise all three streams by the same percentage, so they do not move these ages. For a married couple the relevant lifespan is the longer of two lives, which is longer than either one alone, so the decision is really about the second death, not the first. SSA's life expectancy calculator gives a starting point for each of you.

The case for claiming earlier is real in specific situations: serious health problems that shorten life expectancy for both spouses, no other savings to live on, or the lower earner in a couple whose own benefit will be replaced by a larger survivor benefit anyway. A fear that the program will run out is not a good reason. The 2026 Trustees Report projects the combined retirement and disability trust funds can pay full benefits until 2034 and 83% of scheduled benefits after that, even if Congress does nothing (SSA Trustees, 2026). A permanent 30% cut from claiming at 62 is larger than that projected shortfall.

Working, taxes and Medicare before you claim

If you claim before full retirement age and keep working, the earnings test withholds $1 of benefits for every $2 you earn above $24,480 in 2026, and $1 for every $3 above $65,160 in the year you reach full retirement age (SSA, 2026). Withheld benefits are not lost: your monthly amount is recalculated upward at full retirement age. Only wages and self-employment income count, not pensions, IRA withdrawals or investment income. After full retirement age there is no limit.

Up to 85% of benefits become taxable once combined income passes $34,000 single or $44,000 joint, with a lower tier from $25,000 and $32,000 (SSA). Those thresholds are not indexed, so most retirees with a pension or a sizable IRA pay tax on 85% of their benefits. That is an argument for spending down IRA money in the years before you claim, which lowers both future RMDs and the tax on your benefits. Medicare Part B premiums, including any IRMAA surcharge, are deducted from your Social Security check once you claim. Our guide to when to claim Social Security works through the full decision.

A spouse can receive up to 50% of the worker's primary insurance amount, the benefit the worker would get at full retirement age, if the spouse claims at their own full retirement age (SSA). Claimed earlier, it is reduced: at 62 with a full retirement age of 67 it is 32.5% of the worker's amount. Four rules matter most.

• The worker must have filed. A spouse cannot collect a spousal benefit until the worker has applied for their own retirement benefit. If the higher earner waits to 70, the spousal top-up waits too.
• Delayed credits do not pass through. The spousal maximum is 50% of the worker's full-retirement-age amount, not of the larger amount the worker earns by waiting. And the spouse gains nothing by waiting past their own full retirement age to claim it.
• Deemed filing. If you were born on or after January 2, 1954 and are eligible for both your own benefit and a spousal benefit, applying for one is treated as applying for both (SSA). You receive your own benefit first, plus any excess spousal amount on top. The old strategy of taking only the spousal benefit while your own grew to 70 is gone for anyone born after that date.
• Divorced spouses count. If the marriage lasted 10 years or more, you are 62 or older and currently unmarried, you can claim on an ex-spouse's record. If you have been divorced at least two years, you can claim even if your ex has not yet applied (SSA). It does not reduce the ex-spouse's benefit or their current spouse's.

In practice, a spousal benefit only matters when one spouse's own benefit is less than half of the other's. Where both spouses had long careers, each usually just claims their own.

When a spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits and loses the smaller one. A survivor at their own full retirement age receives 100% of what the deceased was receiving, including any delayed retirement credits; a survivor can claim as early as 60 at a reduced 71.5% (SSA). Full retirement age for survivor benefits is between 66 and 67, depending on birth year.

This is the strongest argument for the higher earner to wait. The higher earner's claiming age sets the check the survivor will live on, possibly for decades. If the higher earner claimed early, the survivor is limited to the larger of what the deceased was receiving or 82.5% of the deceased's full amount (SSA). If the higher earner waited to 70, the survivor inherits 124%.

Survivors also have a choice that retirees do not. Deemed filing does not apply to survivor benefits, so a widow or widower can take one benefit and switch to the other later (SSA). Someone with a modest survivor benefit and a strong record of their own might take the survivor benefit at 60 and switch to their own at 70. Someone whose own benefit is smaller might take it at 62 and switch to the full survivor benefit at full retirement age.

David and Linda were both born after 1960, so their full retirement age is 67. David's full benefit is $3,600 a month and Linda's own is $1,400. Figures are in today's dollars; cost-of-living adjustments would raise all of them.

Linda claims her own benefit at 67. Once David files, her spousal top-up brings her to $1,800, half of David's full amount. David waits to 70 and receives $4,464. They live on their IRA in the gap years, which also lets them convert part of it to a Roth at low rates.

The payoff comes later. If David dies first, Linda's $1,800 stops and she receives his $4,464. Had David claimed at 62, his check would have been $2,520, and Linda's survivor benefit would be capped at $2,970. Waiting gives her $1,494 a month more, about $17,928 a year, for as long as she lives.