Suze Orman Slams ‘Bad Advice’ on Social Security and Urges Retirees to Maximize Their Payout

In a June 11, 2026 post on her blog titled What the Latest Social Security Buzz Gets Wrong, Suze Orman pushed back hard on a wave of social media voices urging Americans to claim Social Security the moment they turn 62. Her argument: filing early amounts to a permanent pay cut, and most retirees are far better served by waiting.

The stakes are concrete. For anyone born in 1960 or later, Full Retirement Age is 67. Claiming at 62 locks in just 70% of your earned benefit, a permanent 30% reduction that cannot be reversed. Every cost-of-living adjustment then rides on that smaller base for the rest of your life. The 2026 COLA came in at 2.8%, and a percentage applied to a smaller check is a smaller raise in dollar terms, compounding against you year after year.

The verdict: Orman is right, and the math is not close

Orman’s position holds up under scrutiny. The popular “break-even” framing treats Social Security like a bet: waiting only pays off if you live past roughly age 79. In reality, it functions as longevity insurance. According to SSA actuarial data, a woman in average health who reaches 65 has a 50% chance of living to 87, placing her nearly a decade past the break-even threshold. That is the median outcome, meaning half of all 65-year-old women will live even longer.

Here is the basic mechanic. For each year you delay claiming between Full Retirement Age and 70, your benefit grows by about 8%. Three years of delay credits push your check 24% above the Full Retirement Age amount and more than 75% above the age-62 amount.

The numbers are worth running concretely. A worker entitled to $2,000 a month at 67 collects $2,480 a month by waiting until 70, yet only $1,400 a month by filing at 62. The monthly gap between the early and late checks exceeds a thousand dollars, and that gap persists for life. It also grows with each annual COLA. The Senior Citizens League now projects a 3.5% COLA for 2027, its most recent forecast as of September 2026, driven by persistent inflation. At the current average benefit of $1,940.08, that increase would add roughly $67.90 per month. A larger base check magnifies every dollar of that gain, making the compounding effect of delay very real over a long retirement.

The other myth Orman addresses is that claiming early shields you from a future benefit cut. The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released June 9, projects the OASI trust fund will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032. At that point, continuing payroll tax revenue would cover only about 78% of scheduled benefits, an automatic 22% reduction unless Congress acts. That timeline moved one year earlier than the prior report. The program’s 75-year funding gap has widened to 4.42% of taxable payroll, up from 3.82% a year earlier, and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated in July 2026 that a typical dual-earning couple retiring at the start of 2033 could lose roughly $16,900 in annual benefits if lawmakers do nothing. Filing early simply means absorbing that potential cut from a smaller starting point. On the legislative front, Congress reintroduced the Social Security 2100 Act in June and July 2026, a bill that would raise benefits by 2% and extend the program’s solvency by decades, though its prospects remain uncertain. Social Security navigated a similar solvency crisis in the early 1980s without forcing beneficiaries to absorb the full cost, and that historical precedent matters for anyone weighing the early-claim argument.

The variable: your health and your need for income

One factor ultimately determines whether Orman’s advice applies to you. Claiming early genuinely makes sense in two situations: a current health condition that makes living into your mid-80s unlikely, or a real cash need because you cannot keep working and have no savings to bridge the gap. Outside of those two cases, the math favors waiting.

The need-for-income case is more common than people admit. Median household retirement savings for Baby Boomers sits at $270,000, per Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies survey data, while average annual consumer expenditures hit $78,535 in 2024. The personal savings rate fell to 2.7% in June 2026, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a sharp decline from prior years. A TSCL survey released in September 2026 found that 44% of older Americans draw all their income from Social Security, the highest share the organization has ever recorded. For households with a modest nest egg, the early check can be a genuine survival tool rather than simple impatience.

For married couples, the calculus tilts even harder toward delay. The higher earner should wait as long as possible, ideally to 70, because the surviving spouse inherits the larger of the two benefits. Maximizing the higher earner’s check is, in effect, purchasing the longest-living spouse a bigger inflation-adjusted annuity for life. SSA data shows only about 8% to 9% of retirees actually wait until 70 or later, meaning roughly 91% lock in a permanently smaller check.

What to do this week

1. Pull your benefit estimate at SSA.gov for ages 62, 67, and 70. Write the three monthly numbers side by side. Seeing your own version of Orman’s $1,400 / $2,000 / $2,480 spread changes the conversation.
2. Calculate your household’s annual spending floor, then subtract any pension and portfolio withdrawal you can sustain. The gap is what Social Security needs to cover. If delaying still leaves the gap funded, delay.
3. If married, identify the higher earner and build the plan around that person waiting until 70. The lower earner can claim earlier if cash flow demands it.
4. Assess your health realistically. If a serious condition makes reaching 85 or beyond unlikely, the early-claim case is real. For everyone else, waiting produces the better lifetime outcome.

Orman’s bottom line is simple: wait until at least 67, and ideally until 70. The early check feels like found money. It is actually the smallest check you will ever cash, and it is locked in for life.

Editor’s note: The 2027 COLA projection was updated to 3.5% with an expected average increase of $67.90 per month (from a baseline of $1,940.08), reflecting TSCL’s September 2026 forecast, which revised the organization’s earlier 3.8% estimate downward. The description of the One Big Beautiful Bill’s effect on Social Security funding was corrected: the law created a federal income tax deduction for tips and overtime, not a payroll tax exemption, so FICA contributions on those earnings remain unchanged. A reference to the reintroduction of the Social Security 2100 Act in Congress (June and July 2026) was added as new legislative context.

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