Your decision about when to claim Social Security will have a big impact on your retirement security. While it may seem pretty easy to make this choice, the reality is that there’s a lot more to it than you might think. You don’t want to be left with regrets — or with lower benefits than you could otherwise have received — so you need to know a lot of details about Social Security’s rules to make the best claiming choice. To help ensure you are informed and armed with the info needed to build a secure retirement, check out these 20 key things to know before claiming Social Security benefits.
1. You have a choice of when to claim retirement benefits
You can claim retirement benefits as early as age 62. You can also delay your claim, which will increase your benefit amount. Although you can technically delay as long as you would like, there is no benefit to delaying beyond age 70 because benefits don’t increase any further at that point. 
2. You can potentially claim your retirement benefits, spousal benefits, or survivor benefits
Social Security does not just provide retirement benefits. Survivor benefits are also available if your spouse passed away and you are at least 60, or at least 50 and disabled. Survivor benefits can also be claimed at a younger age if you are caring for a minor child of the deceased who is disabled or under 16. Spousal benefits are also available based on your spouse’s work history and can be claimed once you are 62 years old. 
3. You may still be entitled to spousal or survivor benefits after getting divorced
Spousal and survivor benefits are available to you if you were married for at least 10 years prior to divorcing. You cannot get spousal benefits if you remarried, although you can continue survivor benefits after tying the knot again as long as you don’t get married before age 60 (or age 50 if you are disabled).
4. Anyone turning 66 faces a Full Retirement Age of 67
Everyone has a full retirement age (FRA) based on birth year. For the core wave of workers hitting retirement parity, the graduated scale has officially reached its maximum threshold. If you want to get your standard retirement benefit, you will need to retire right at your FRA. Your FRA is 67 if you were born in 1960 or later.
5. Your standard benefit is based on average wages over 35 years
Your standard Social Security benefit is calculated using a formula that takes average wages into account. Social Security keeps an earning record over time, with your earnings reported each year. Your earnings are then adjusted for inflation, and your average monthly indexed earnings are calculated over your 35 highest-earning years. That essentially means your average inflation-adjusted monthly wage in your 35 highest-earning years is calculated. You then get benefits equal to a percentage of that amount. Working less than 35 years means years of $0 wages are factored into your benefit, so you’d likely want to avoid that. If you are earning a lot later in life, it’s also a good idea to keep working for more than 35 years if you can, so you can replace some lower earnings early years in your benefits calculation.
6. If you claim benefits before FRA, benefits are reduced
If you claim benefits prior to your FRA, your standard benefit is reduced. The reduction equals:
- 5/9 of 1% for the first 36 months
- 5/12 of 1% for any month prior
This adds up to around a 6.7% reduction for each of the first 3 years of an early claim, and a 5% benefits reduction for any prior year before that. If you claim benefits at 62 instead of your FRA of 67, for example, that would add up to a 30% benefits reduction.
7. Any reduction in your benefits due to an early claim is permanent
If your benefits are reduced because you claim them early, that reduction is permanent. Your payment does not increase again once you have hit your full retirement age.
8. If you claim benefits after FRA, benefits are increased
If you wait beyond your FRA to start benefits, your checks will increase. You can earn delayed retirement credits for each month you wait. Those are worth 2/3 of 1%, which adds up to an 8% annual benefits increase for each year you wait. These credits can only be earned until 70, though, so you don’t want to wait to claim benefits beyond that point.
9. Spousal benefits do not get bigger if you wait until after FRA
While spousal benefits shrink if you claim them before your full retirement age, they do not increase if you wait until after. The maximum spousal benefit you can receive is 50% of your spouse’s standard benefit. As a result, there is no benefit to waiting beyond your FRA to claim spousal benefits.
10. You can’t claim your spousal benefits until your spouse has claimed their retirement benefits
If you want to claim spousal benefits, your higher-earning spouse must have claimed their retirement benefits first. You cannot file for your spousal benefits until they do. You can get your own benefits (if you are eligible for them), and then switch over to spousal benefits when your spouse eventually claims. This is a common strategy that many people use to maximize combined Social Security benefits.
11. You should do a break-even calculation before you claim benefits
When you are deciding on the right age to claim Social Security benefits, you should do a break-even calculation. This involves:
- Determining how much the benefit would be at the different claiming ages you are considering
- Calculating the income you give up if you wait to claim benefits
- Determining how long you’d have to earn the higher benefit to break even.
Say, for example, you were deciding between claiming at 62 or claiming at 67, and your standard benefit at 67 would be $2,000. Your reduced benefit at 62 would be 30% lower, so it would equal $1,400. If you collected a $1,400 benefit from age 62 to age 70, you would collect $84,000. If you waited, you would increase your monthly benefit by $600. At a rate of $600 extra per month, it would take you 140 months ($84K/$600) or 11.67 years to break even. If you don’t think you’d live long enough, an early claim would be better. If you think you will live longer, a late claim would be the right choice.
12. If you are the higher earner and you file for benefits early, you will shrink survivor benefits
When one spouse passes away, the surviving spouse gets to keep the higher of the two benefits that were coming into the home. If you were the higher earner and you claimed benefits early, you would have shrunk your benefit. This means your spouse would get a smaller benefit than they otherwise could have if you die first.
13. Working before FRA caps earnings thresholds at $24,480
If you claim Social Security benefits before your full retirement age and continue to work, you will temporarily forfeit a portion of your payouts if your income exceeds strict legal caps. If you remain under your full retirement age for the entire calendar year, the earnings limit is $24,480, and the government withholds $1 in benefits for every $2 earned over that threshold. During the specific year you finally reach full retirement age, the limit increases to $65,160, with the penalty dropping to a $1 deduction for every $3 earned over the limit until the month of your birthday. After reaching full retirement age, these earnings restrictions completely disappear.
14. Inflation adjustments push more provisional income into taxable brackets
Social Security benefits are partly taxable on the federal level once your provisional income hits historical legislative thresholds. Provisional income is calculated by adding half of your annual Social Security benefits to your total taxable income and certain non-taxable income streams. If your provisional income exceeds $25,000 for single filers or $32,000 for married joint filers, up to 50% or 85% of your benefits become subject to federal income taxes. Because these specific bracket floors are never indexed for inflation, annual cost-of-living benefit increases continuously slide a larger absolute percentage of retirees into taxable territory each year.
15. The standard Medicare Part B monthly deduction is $202.90
If you get insurance coverage through Medicare Part B, which most people do once they are 65, you will have premiums to pay. The standard monthly premium deduction sits at $202.90 per beneficiary. These costs are automatically deducted directly from your monthly Social Security check, meaning the net cash amount deposited into your bank account will be lower than your gross calculated retirement benefit.
16. Maximum monthly benefit caps favor delayed filers
The strict legal limit on maximum possible monthly retirement checks relies heavily on the specific age at which a worker elects to apply for benefits. For high-earning individuals who have achieved or exceeded the maximum taxable wage base for at least 35 working years, filing for retirement at the minimum age of 62 establishes a hard ceiling of $2,969 per month. Waiting to declare benefits until full retirement age moves that monthly ceiling up to $4,152, while maximizing delayed retirement credits up to age 70 unlocks the absolute maximum payout cap of $5,181 per month.
17. Annual cost-of-living adjustments implement a 2.8% boost
Retirees receive cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) most years to help preserve the purchasing power of their monthly benefits against economic inflation. These systemic upward revisions trigger automatically when the third-quarter data from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers indicates rising baseline consumer costs. The specific regulatory update implements a 2.8% upward benefit adjustment, which shifts average monthly benefit allocations up by approximately $56 per individual check.
18. Social Security’s trust fund faces shortfalls, but the tax base guarantees an 81% payout floor
Social Security has a trust fund, and it is facing financial trouble. It could run dry as soon as 2034 if the Social Security retirement and disability trust funds are combined. This would mean an automatic benefits cut because there would not be enough money to pay all that is promised. However, benefits could still be paid out of taxes collected from current workers. Around 81% of benefits would still be paid if the trust fund ran dry.
19. The retirement earnings test withholding penalties are credited back at FRA
When the Social Security Administration temporarily withholds portions of an early filer’s benefit checks due to the active earnings test, those financial resources are not permanently lost. Upon reaching full retirement age, the administration initiates an automatic calculation adjustment that recalculates the monthly payout amount upward. This systemic reset effectively credits back the exact number of months that benefits were completely or partially withheld, allowing retirees to recover the initial penalties over time if they survive past their statistical break-even threshold.
20. Legislation expands Extra Help resources alongside the $184,500 wage cap
The absolute limit on earnings subject to the standard 6.2% retirement payroll tax sits at a cap of $184,500. Concurrently, statutory structural revisions from the Inflation Reduction Act have permanently expanded the income and financial resource eligibility limits for the federal Extra Help program. This integrated optimization enables low-to-moderate-income seniors to fully insulate their primary retirement benefits from being heavily impacted by rising Medicare Part D prescription drug plan costs.
Editor’s Note: This article was updated to reflect current retirement parameters, including the maximum full retirement age threshold of 67 for individuals born in 1960 or later, the active pre-retirement earnings test limit of $24,480, and the adjusted maximum retirement wage cap of $184,500. Additional substantive changes integrate the standard monthly Medicare Part B premium deduction of $202.90, the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment valuation, maximum delayed filing caps of $5,181, statutory rules for early earning test recalculations at full retirement age, and the updated low-income prescription resource thresholds established under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks