For many older Americans, one of the most consequential decisions they face is when to sign up for Social Security. A large share of workers reach the end of their careers with little to no savings, making Social Security their primary, and sometimes only, source of retirement income. Getting the claiming decision right can mean thousands of dollars more over a lifetime.
Your monthly Social Security benefit is calculated from your lifetime earnings record. But the age at which you file determines whether you receive that benefit in full, at a reduced rate, or at an enhanced level. The Social Security Administration applies three distinct claiming windows, and each carries permanent consequences.
Filing at your full retirement age (FRA) delivers your complete monthly benefit with no reduction. For anyone born in 1960 or later, FRA is 67. Claiming before FRA, as early as age 62, locks in a permanent reduction of up to 30%. Waiting past FRA earns you delayed retirement credits of 8% for each full year you hold off, up to age 70, producing a benefit that is 24% higher than your FRA amount. A worker entitled to $2,000 a month at 67 collects $2,480 a month by waiting until 70, and only $1,400 a month by filing at 62. The average Social Security retirement benefit for a retired worker in January 2026 is $2,071 per month, reflecting the 2.8% 2026 cost-of-living adjustment.
Recently, a couple reached out to financial expert Suze Orman asking for guidance on when to claim Social Security. Her answer was not what most people expected.
Don’t rush to claim Social Security, even in poor health
Conventional wisdom holds that people in poor health should claim benefits on the earlier side. The logic is straightforward: someone who may not live very long could maximize total lifetime income by starting payments sooner, even if each monthly check is smaller. Most traditional financial planning frameworks follow this reasoning.
Orman pushed back on that assumption. When a couple with health issues asked her when to file, she told them to wait rather than rush toward an early claim. Her reasoning centers on a counterintuitive reality: people with chronic conditions often live considerably longer than they or their doctors initially expect. Filing early in that scenario means permanently shorting themselves on monthly income for potentially decades.
“Waiting to collect a larger benefit is not a gamble,” Orman explains, “it is insurance against the very real possibility of living a long time.” Modern medicine has turned many once-fatal diagnoses into manageable conditions, and the U.S. gap between lifespan and health-adjusted life expectancy reflects a trend of people living longer with chronic illness. Orman’s point is that this medical reality changes the math for people who assume a shorter horizon.
You need to take all of your circumstances into consideration
Health problems run a wide spectrum, from manageable issues like high blood pressure to conditions more likely to shorten one’s lifespan meaningfully. Talking with your doctor about your specific prognosis is an important step before you commit to any filing strategy.
Your household situation matters just as much. Delayed retirement credits flow through to survivor benefits. A surviving spouse generally receives the higher of the two spouses’ benefit amounts, so the higher earner’s delayed claiming raises both their own benefit and the eventual survivor benefit. If you have a younger spouse who is likely to outlive you, filing early and locking in a reduced benefit could leave your partner with smaller survivor income for the rest of their life.
Your savings cushion is another critical variable. If you have very little set aside, you may need larger Social Security checks sooner to cover basic living costs, even if that trade-off reduces your total lifetime income. The popular “break-even” framing, where waiting only pays off if you live past roughly age 79, treats Social Security like a bet rather than a foundational income stream, and it ignores the survivor benefit dimension entirely.
There is also a broader financial backdrop worth understanding. The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund is projected to pay 100% of scheduled benefits until the fourth quarter of 2032. At that time, reserves will become depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay only 78% of total scheduled benefits, according to the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report. Orman pushes back on the myth that claiming early shields you from a future benefit cut. If Congress does nothing before the trust fund shortfall arrives, the worst-case scenario is roughly a 20% reduction. Filing early simply means absorbing that cut from a smaller starting point.
All told, deciding when to claim Social Security is rarely simple. Orman’s core message, though, is consistent: do not let a health diagnosis push you into an automatic early filing. The factors you need to weigh go well beyond your current medical picture, and the permanent nature of the claiming decision means it deserves careful, unhurried thought.
Editor’s note: This update added the 2026 COLA figure of 2.8%, the current average monthly benefit of $2,071, Orman’s concrete benefit comparison ($1,400 at 62 vs. $2,000 at FRA vs. $2,480 at age 70), and context from the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report projecting the OASI trust fund depletion in Q4 2032 with 78% of benefits payable at that point.
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