Suze Orman’s Surprising Advice on When to Claim Social Security

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 tens of 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 was $2,071 per month as of January 2026, reflecting the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment that took effect that year.

That larger starting benefit also compounds more powerfully over time. With the 2027 COLA currently projected at roughly 3.5% to 3.6% by AARP and the Senior Citizens League, a higher base amount means meaningfully larger dollar increases with each annual adjustment, year after year.

Recently, a couple reached out to financial expert Suze Orman asking for guidance on when to claim. 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 advised 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 accepting a smaller monthly income for potentially decades.

In Orman’s framing, waiting to collect a larger benefit is not a gamble. 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 that reality changes the math for anyone who assumes a shorter horizon.

The broader claims environment makes Orman’s advice more timely than ever. According to an Urban Institute analysis of Social Security Administration data, more than 2.3 million older Americans filed for retirement benefits between January and July 2025, a 16% jump compared with the same period in 2024. Experts cited economic anxiety, changes at the SSA, and concerns about the program’s long-term finances as key drivers. That surge reversed a decades-long trend of Americans increasingly delaying their claims, and many of those who filed early locked themselves into a permanently lower monthly payment.

You need to take all of your circumstances into consideration

Health problems run a wide spectrum, from manageable conditions like high blood pressure to diagnoses more likely to shorten one’s lifespan meaningfully. Talking with your doctor about your specific prognosis is an important step before committing 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 decision to delay 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. It also ignores the survivor benefit dimension entirely.

There is also a broader financial backdrop worth understanding. According to the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released June 9, 2026, 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 point, reserves will be depleted and continuing program income will be sufficient to pay only 78% of total scheduled benefits. The depletion date moved one quarter earlier than projected in the prior year’s report, partly because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reduced the income tax revenues flowing into the trust fund. Orman pushes back on the idea that claiming early shields you from a future benefit cut. If Congress does nothing before the shortfall arrives, the worst-case scenario under the 2026 report is roughly a 22% 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 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 pass corrected the projected worst-case trust fund benefit reduction from “roughly 20%” to “roughly 22%” per the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report (78% of benefits payable at depletion), added context about the 2025 surge in early claims documented by the Urban Institute and AARP (2.3 million filings, up 16% through July 2025), added the current 2027 COLA projections of 3.5% to 3.6% from AARP and the Senior Citizens League, and noted that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act contributed to the trust fund’s accelerated depletion timeline.

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