Social Security Claiming Age Calculator: 62 vs 67 vs 70

How to use this calculator

1. Enter your year of birth. It sets your full retirement age: 66 for 1943 to 1954, rising to 67 for 1960 or later.
2. Enter your monthly benefit at full retirement age — your primary insurance amount, or PIA — from your Social Security Statement.
3. Pick a claiming age to check and a life expectancy for the lifetime totals. The table below compares all nine ages, 62 to 70.

Nothing you enter leaves your browser. To see next year’s raise on the benefit you get now, use the COLA calculator; to see how much of it is taxable, use the Social Security tax calculator.

Full retirement age by year of birth

If you were born on January 1, use the previous year. Learn the terms in our glossary.

Worked example: $2,000 at full retirement age

Someone born in 1960 has a full retirement age of 67 and a PIA of $2,000 a month:

• Claim at 62: 70% of full — $1,400 a month, $16,800 a year.
• Claim at 67: 100% — $2,000 a month.
• Claim at 70: 124% — $2,480 a month, $1,080 more than claiming at 62, every month for life.
• By age 85, the age-62 claimer has collected $386,400 and the age-70 claimer $446,400 — the early claimer is still ahead at 85 in this example, because the age-70 claimer only starts at 70.

Break-even ages

The break-even age is where the later claim catches up in total checks received. For the $2,000 example above:

• 62 vs full retirement age (67): the age-67 claim catches up at about 78 years and 8 months.
• 62 vs 70: the age-70 claim catches up at about 80 years and 5 months.
• Full retirement age vs 70: the age-70 claim catches up at about 82 years and 6 months.

Those ages are in today’s dollars, with no cost-of-living adjustments and no discounting. Discounting future checks — because money now is worth more than money later — pushes every break-even age later, by roughly two to four years at a 2–3% discount rate. So the break-even is a guide, not a prediction: living well past it favours waiting, dying before it favours claiming early.

When claiming early makes sense

• You need the income now and have no other way to cover your bills.
• Your health or family history points to a shorter life than average.
• You are the lower earner in a couple and your spouse’s benefit, not yours, is the one that will last as a survivor benefit.
• You plan to keep working and would rather take the smaller check now than draw down savings — though the earnings test can hold back benefits before full retirement age; check the earnings limit calculator.

When waiting to 70 makes sense

• You expect to live into your late 80s or 90s, or you have a family history of longevity.
• You are the higher earner in a couple: delaying raises the survivor benefit your spouse would receive for the rest of their life.
• You can cover the gap years from savings, a pension or part-time work, and you want the largest guaranteed, inflation-adjusted income for later life.
• You want the biggest possible base for the cost-of-living adjustment, which is a percentage of your benefit.

Spousal benefits: claiming on your spouse’s record

If your own benefit is smaller than half of your spouse’s full benefit, Social Security tops yours up. At your full retirement age the top-up brings you to 50% of your spouse’s PIA; claim earlier and the top-up is cut, with no delayed credits for waiting past full retirement age. Your spouse must have filed for their own benefit first, and if you claim your own benefit before full retirement age, Social Security deems you to have filed for the spousal benefit too.

Example: your PIA $800, your spouse’s PIA $2,400. At full retirement age (67 for someone born in 1960) your own benefit is $800 and the spousal top-up is $400, for a total of $1,200 a month. Claim at 62 and the top-up is $260, for $820 a month. If your own PIA were already above half of your spouse’s, there would be no top-up at all — you would simply take your own benefit.

Divorced spouses can claim on an ex-spouse’s record if the marriage lasted at least 10 years, they are 62 or older and unmarried. The ex-spouse does not need to have filed, and your claim does not reduce their benefit or their current spouse’s.

Survivor benefits: what your spouse would get

When one spouse dies, the survivor can receive up to 100% of what the deceased was receiving, including any delayed retirement credits — which is why the higher earner delaying to 70 is worth so much to the surviving spouse. Claim the survivor benefit before your survivor full retirement age and it is reduced, to 71.5% at age 60, rising in equal monthly steps to 100%. The survivor full retirement age follows its own table: 66 for anyone born in 1956 or earlier, rising to 67 for 1962 or later. If the deceased claimed early, the survivor amount is capped at the larger of what they were receiving or 82.5% of their full benefit, and the age reduction is worked out on the full benefit first.

Example: the deceased’s benefit was $2,480 a month. A survivor born in 1962 who claims at full retirement age (67) receives $2,480 a month; claiming at 60, they receive $1,773 a month (71.5% of the full amount). A survivor who is caring for the deceased’s child under 16 can claim 75% of the full benefit at any age, and a disabled widow or widower can claim from age 50.

What this calculator does not model

• Spousal and survivor benefits — now modelled in the two calculators above; the family maximum and benefits for children or dependent parents are not.
• Taxes — up to 85% of benefits can be taxable depending on your other income.
• The earnings test — working before full retirement age can hold back checks, though the money is credited back later.
• Medicare premiums — Part B premiums are often taken from the benefit, and IRMAA can raise them.
• Future COLA — amounts are in today’s dollars; COLA raises every claiming age by the same percentage.

This is a math comparison, not financial advice. Your Social Security Statement at ssa.gov gives the official estimate for your own earnings record — use that PIA here, and talk to a financial planner if the choice is close.

Formulas used

Social Security applies the same monthly rates to partial years — claiming at 63 and 6 months, for example, is 42 months early for a full retirement age of 67. This calculator uses whole claiming ages.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Full retirement age by year of birth — Social Security Administration
• Delayed retirement credits — Social Security Administration
• When to start your retirement benefits — Social Security Administration
• 2027 cost-of-living adjustment fact sheet — Social Security Administration
• Family benefits (spousal benefits) — Social Security Administration
• Survivor benefits — Social Security Administration

Key terms

• Full retirement age (FRA)
• Primary insurance amount (PIA)