Clark Howard Says Delaying Social Security Locks In an 8% Raise Every Year. One Listener Did the Math and Found a $2,000 Medicare Catch.

A listener wrote into The Clark Howard Podcast with a complaint that should make every near-retiree pause. Clark’s advice to delay Social Security until 70 to lock in the 8% annual delayed retirement credit is mathematically sound. The listener discovered, though, that a bigger benefit can push retirees into a higher IRMAA bracket, adding thousands in Medicare Part B and Part D surcharges that come straight out of that larger Social Security check.

I have been writing about retirement income planning weekly for years, and I have no position in any advisory product mentioned here. The complaint in question came during the November 16, 2018 “Clark Stinks” segment. The listener took Clark to task for repeatedly telling callers to delay Social Security until 70 without warning them that the bigger benefit could push them into a higher IRMAA bracket, bumping their Medicare Part B and Part D premiums, which are pulled directly from the Social Security check.

The complaint stings because Clark’s advice has been remarkably consistent. “Wait till your 70th birthday. It’s the greatest gift to wait those four years,” he told one 66-year-old caller. He cites the roughly 8% annual increase you lock in for every year you delay past full retirement age, and he is mathematically correct: for those born in 1943 or later, the delayed retirement credit accrues at two-thirds of 1% per month, or 8% per year, applied as simple interest to your Primary Insurance Amount. The listener’s point is that being right on the benefit side can still leave you worse off once Medicare claws part of it back.

Where the listener has a point

IRMAA stands for Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount. It is a surcharge Medicare adds to your Part B and Part D premiums when your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) from two years prior crosses certain brackets. Critically, 2026 IRMAA determinations are based on your 2024 tax return, so income decisions made years before Medicare eligibility still ripple forward. In 2026, the first threshold sits at $109,000 for single filers and $218,000 for joint filers, up from the 2025 levels of $106,000 and $212,000.

The brackets work as cliffs, and that is what makes them so dangerous. One dollar over a threshold triggers the full surcharge for that tier. At the first IRMAA level, the surcharge adds $81.20 per month to the standard Part B premium of $202.90, plus an additional $14.50 per month to Part D. For a couple where both spouses are on Medicare, crossing into that first IRMAA tier adds $2,297 to their combined annual premium bill, counting both Part B and Part D surcharges for each spouse.

Here is the mechanic Clark skipped past. Suppose your full retirement age benefit is $3,000 a month. Claim at 67 and you collect $36,000 a year. Wait to 70 and the 8% per year delay credit pushes it to roughly $3,720 a month, or about $44,640 a year. That extra $8,640 of taxable Social Security stacks on top of Required Minimum Distributions, pension income, dividends, and any Roth conversions you are running. If you were sitting $5,000 below the first IRMAA threshold before claiming, the larger check just shoved you over it.

The break-even, redone with IRMAA in it

Clark’s standard break-even lands around age 82: claim at 70 instead of 67, and you recoup the foregone checks by your early 80s. Layer in a first-tier IRMAA surcharge of roughly $2,300 a year for a couple, and the break-even slides out by a year or two. The case for delaying still holds in most scenarios. The point is that the “greatest gift” framing carries a real cost that does not show up in the simple benefit comparison.

The longevity argument still anchors the case for waiting. According to the CDC’s most recent mortality data, remaining life expectancy at 65 for the total U.S. population is 19.7 years. The risk of outliving your money matters far more than a few thousand dollars of Medicare surcharges at the margin. A larger, inflation-indexed check at 88 or 90 is worth considerably more than the IRMAA hit that might arrive at 72.

One group faces compounded exposure: public-sector retirees who received retroactive benefit increases under the Social Security Fairness Act, enacted in January 2025, which eliminated the Windfall Elimination Provision and Government Pension Offset for millions of former government workers. Those retroactive payments, reported as income in the year received, can spike MAGI enough to trigger IRMAA surcharges two years later, even for retirees who had comfortably managed their income for years.

The variable that flips the decision

The single number that determines whether IRMAA should change your claiming plan is your projected MAGI two years after you start the bigger benefit. If your retirement income keeps you comfortably below the first 2026 threshold of $109,000 for single filers or $218,000 for joint filers, delaying to 70 is close to a free lunch. The surcharge never triggers.

If you are already pressing against a threshold from RMDs and a pension, the math gets considerably uglier. Adding $8,000 to $10,000 of extra Social Security each year might land both spouses in a higher IRMAA tier. That is when the listener’s gripe is most justified, and when claiming at full retirement age or executing aggressive Roth conversions before 70 becomes the smarter play.

What to actually do

1. Pull your most recent Form 1040 and estimate your MAGI at ages 72 to 75, including projected RMDs from every traditional IRA and 401(k) you own.
2. Look up the current IRMAA brackets on Medicare.gov and identify where you land under two scenarios: claiming at full retirement age versus claiming at 70.
3. If delaying pushes you across a bracket, model Roth conversions in your 60s to drain pre-tax balances before RMDs start. Lower future RMDs reduce future MAGI and, with it, future IRMAA exposure.
4. Run the numbers on the SSA.gov estimator or the paid Maximize My Social Security tool Clark recommends, then layer the IRMAA surcharge on top yourself. Neither tool does that calculation for you by default.

The listener was right to call Clark out on this one. Delaying to 70 remains the correct answer for most healthy retirees with strong longevity in the family. It is just not a cost-free decision, and treating it as one leaves people genuinely surprised when Medicare quietly takes a bite out of the bigger check they spent three years waiting to collect.

Editor’s note: This pass added the two-year lookback specificity (2026 IRMAA is determined by 2024 MAGI), clarified that the $2,297 annual couple figure combines both Part B and Part D surcharges, and added context on the Social Security Fairness Act’s potential to spike MAGI and trigger IRMAA for public-sector retirees.

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