My full retirement age is 67 — for anyone born in 1960 or later, 67 is the age that pays 100%. Claim at 62, the earliest they’ll let you, and you take 70% of that amount, every month, for life. Wait past 67 and the government pays you to wait: 8% more for each year you hold off, up to 124% at 70, where the raise stops. On my numbers that’s about $2,100 a month at 62, about $3,000 at 67, about $3,720 at 70.
Claim at 62 and by the time you turn 70 you’ve already banked about $201,600. The late claimant’s extra $1,620 a month needs about ten and a half years to erase that head start, which puts the break-even at about age 80. Outlive 80 and waiting wins. Don’t, and the early claim wins. And here’s the part nobody puts on the poster: Social Security’s own life table gives a man my age about 22 to 23 more years — which lands almost exactly on the break-even.
There’s a second reason 62 is the right call for most people who retire at 62 or younger, and federal retirees feel it first: the FERS supplement ends at 62. Claiming Social Security at 62 fills the hole with no gap — in my case it’s about a $473-a-month raise the day the supplement stops. Every year you wait past 62 while retired is a year you fund out of the portfolio instead. Bird in hand.
One thing about that $2,100: Social Security doesn’t average your whole career — it restates your past earnings in today’s dollars, picks your highest 35 years, and averages those. Work fewer than 35 years and the missing years go in as zeros, and a zero drags an average down like an anchor. My record runs from Navy pay in 1999 to my last federal paycheck in 2038, almost forty years, so I have no zeros — and my $13.85-an-hour contractor years are exactly the kind that get pushed off the list by stronger ones.
I choose 62 because I’m being realistic — and I have no desire to work past 56 for a living. Your mileage may vary.