Following Suze Orman’s Social Security Advice Over Dave Ramsey’s Could Make You $182,370 Richer

When should you claim Social Security benefits? Every person approaching retirement must grapple with this question. Because you can claim at any point between age 62 and 70, the decision is genuinely hard, and many seniors turn to financial experts for guidance.

The trouble is that two of the most prominent voices in personal finance land on opposite ends of the spectrum. Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey have each staked out clear positions on the optimal claiming age, and those positions could not be further apart.

If you follow both experts and are unsure whose advice to take on this one, the external evidence strongly favors Orman’s view. In dollar terms, following her guidance over Ramsey’s could preserve roughly $182,370 in lifetime discretionary spending, according to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Here is why.

Ramsey vs. Orman on when to claim Social Security

Ramsey’s position is straightforward: claim at 62, the earliest possible age. His argument centers on longevity uncertainty. You do not know how long you will live, so you might as well start collecting immediately. In his view, anyone who waits risks never recovering the benefits they gave up by delaying.

Ramsey has also promoted a related strategy: claim at 62 even if you do not need the money, and invest those early checks instead. He believes that investing Social Security income right away produces better returns than leaving benefits unclaimed and allowing them to grow through delayed retirement credits. Those credits, along with early filing penalties, hinge on when you claim relative to your full retirement age. For anyone born in 1960 or later, that FRA is now 67, completing a decades-long congressional phase-in that took effect in 2026. Claiming at 62 instead of 67 locks in a permanent 30% benefit cut for this group.

Orman takes the opposite view. She advises waiting as long as possible, ideally until 70, the latest age at which delayed credits accrue. As she has written repeatedly, waiting means a much bigger guaranteed monthly payout, and she argues that most retirees will live long enough for the math to work in their favor. Beyond the raw dollar calculation, she emphasizes that a larger benefit provides crucial protection if savings run low in advanced old age. In a June 2026 blog post titled “What the Latest Social Security Buzz Gets Wrong,” Orman pushed back against a wave of social media advice urging early filing, calling the practice a “permanent pay cut.”

Why following Orman’s advice could leave you with more cash in retirement

The data backs Orman’s argument. Most Americans live longer than the actuarial tables that shaped Social Security’s original penalty and credit structure anticipated, which means that most retirees collect enough additional monthly income from waiting to more than offset the checks they forgo in their early 60s.

A 2022 NBER paper titled “How Much Lifetime Social Security Benefits Are Americans Leaving on the Table?” put hard numbers on this. The researchers found that virtually all American workers between 45 and 62 would come out ahead financially by waiting past age 65, and that more than 90% should wait until 70. Only 10.2% actually do. The result is a median loss of $182,370 in the present value of household lifetime discretionary spending for those who claim too early.

The opportunity cost compounds in another way that Orman has highlighted: Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment, set at 2.8% for 2026, is applied as a percentage of your base benefit. A smaller benefit locked in at 62 means every future COLA raise arrives as a smaller dollar amount, quietly eroding purchasing power over a retirement that could last 20 years or more.

A separate development adds fresh urgency to the claiming decision. The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released in June 2026, projects that the Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032. At that point, incoming payroll tax revenue would cover only 78% of scheduled benefits. Orman has argued that this uncertainty is actually a reason to maximize benefits before any potential cuts arrive, not a reason to claim early. Her core case, backed by the NBER research and the structure of delayed retirement credits, remains that waiting produces a higher lifetime payout for the vast majority of retirees.

At the same time, the early-claiming trend is moving in the wrong direction. An Urban Institute analysis of SSA data found that more than 2.3 million older Americans filed for retirement benefits between January and July 2025 alone, a 16% jump versus the same period in 2024, driven in part by economic anxiety and concerns about the program’s long-term finances. SSA data as of 2025 shows only about 8% to 9% of retirees wait until 70 to file. Nearly one in four claims at the earliest possible age of 62.

For most people, choosing Orman’s approach over Ramsey’s is the financially sound call. Health conditions, the ability to bridge income through other savings, and household longevity history are all real variables worth weighing. But the baseline verdict from decades of research is consistent: patience pays.

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect the 2026 increase in full retirement age to 67 for workers born in 1960 or later, Suze Orman’s June 2026 reaffirmation of her delay-to-70 position, the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report projection of trust fund depletion in Q4 2032 covering only 78% of scheduled benefits, and an Urban Institute finding that early Social Security retirement claims rose 16% in the first seven months of 2025.

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