I Planned To Claim Social Security At 62. Here’s Why I Changed My Mind

For a long time, my plan was to claim Social Security at 62. That was the earliest age possible, so the logic felt simple: get the money flowing as soon as it was available.

Like many people, I worried about the program’s trust fund running dry. I also suspected that cost-of-living adjustments were not fully protecting benefits from inflation, which made starting early feel like the prudent move. Why hold out for a potentially smaller real-dollar amount?

After digging into how Social Security actually works, I reversed course entirely. The more I understood the mechanics, the more clearly a delayed claim looked like the better bet for my situation.

The biggest reasons I changed my mind about claiming Social Security

After researching the program more carefully, I decided to wait at least until 67, and probably until 70, to start collecting. Three factors drove that conclusion.

• The threat of Social Security cuts is real but not catastrophic: The risk of the trust fund running out genuinely concerned me, but the reality is less alarming than the headlines suggest. Social Security can always pay benefits from ongoing payroll tax revenue, even if the reserves run dry. According to the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released June 9, 2026, the retirement trust fund (OASI) is projected to be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032, one quarter earlier than the prior year’s estimate. At that point, 78% of scheduled benefits would still be payable from current revenue. If the retirement and disability funds are considered together, the combined reserves hold out until the third quarter of 2034, when 83% of benefits would remain payable. That is a meaningful reduction, but it is not a collapse.

  Congress also faces enormous political pressure to act well before that deadline. In 1983, lawmakers stepped in to prevent an imminent shortfall, and a similar intervention remains the most likely outcome today. The 2026 Trustees Report also captures the financial impact of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which lowered income tax rates and created a new deduction for seniors, thereby reducing the tax revenue flowing into the trust funds. That legislation is a key reason the projected 75-year deficit widened to 4.42% of taxable payroll, up from 3.82% the year before. The worker-to-beneficiary ratio has been falling for decades, and that structural pressure is exactly why Congress faces a hard deadline to act before benefits erode significantly.

• Lifetime income odds favor waiting: Studies have repeatedly shown that claiming at 70 maximizes most people’s lifetime benefits. Americans are living longer than the program’s designers anticipated, and the early-filing penalties and delayed retirement credits that were once calibrated to equalize lifetime payouts for early and late claimers no longer accomplish that goal for the typical retiree. Research finds that a majority of retirees would increase their lifetime wealth by waiting until 70, while fewer than 7% maximize lifetime wealth by claiming before 64.

  The dollar gap between early and late claiming is substantial. In 2026, the maximum monthly benefit at 70 is $5,181, compared with $4,152 at full retirement age (67) and $2,969 at 62. The difference between claiming at 70 versus 62 is more than $2,200 per month. Each full year of delay past full retirement age adds 8% to the benefit, and those delayed retirement credits stop accumulating at 70. For anyone who expects to live into their mid-80s or beyond, the math strongly favors patience.

• I plan to keep working past 62: I enjoy my work and expect to continue well beyond 62. Claiming early while still employed creates a complication that many people overlook. In 2026, anyone who collects Social Security before full retirement age and earns more than $24,480 loses $1 in benefits for every $2 earned above that threshold. For someone with a professional salary, that ceiling is easy to cross, which means early benefits would effectively be withheld anyway.

  There is one silver lining: benefits withheld under the earnings test are not gone permanently. The Social Security Administration recalculates the payment once a recipient reaches full retirement age and credits them for the months it held back, boosting the monthly check going forward. Even so, waiting delivers a cleaner outcome, with a permanently higher base from day one and none of the administrative friction that comes with claiming early.

Taken together, these factors make waiting the right call for me. The 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for 2026 provided a modest lift, and the latest estimates point to a 2027 COLA in the range of 3.5% to 3.6%, which would represent the largest annual adjustment since 2023. The Senior Citizens League pegs the 2027 increase at 3.5%, AARP projects 3.6%, and independent analyst Mary Johnson also estimates 3.5%. The official announcement, based on the July, August, and September CPI-W readings, is expected on October 14, 2026. Because Social Security pays for life and each year of delay raises the starting base permanently, those annual adjustments compound from a higher floor. That compounding effect is a meaningful advantage over a long retirement.

Should you wait to claim your Social Security benefits?

Waiting makes sense for me, but it is not the universal answer. Health status, the ability to keep working, existing savings, and overall retirement income goals all shape the optimal claiming age. The right decision depends heavily on individual circumstances, and anyone weighing these tradeoffs should consider speaking with a financial advisor who can model their specific situation across different claiming scenarios.

Editor’s note: This version adds the full retirement age maximum benefit of $4,152 per month for 2026 as a reference point between the age-62 and age-70 figures, specifies October 14, 2026 as the official 2027 COLA announcement date, and notes that the 2026 Trustees Report moved the OASI depletion date one quarter earlier than the prior year’s estimate.

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