2. You Have a Shorter Life Expectancy
The government encourages delaying your Social Security benefits by increasing the monthly payments the longer you wait.
For instance, if you start claiming Social Security early, at age 62 more precisely, but your full retirement age is 66, then your monthly benefit will be around 75% of your full benefits. So if you’ve calculated that your monthly benefit will be $1,000 at age 66, you would only get about $750 at 62.
A larger monthly benefit definitely sounds great, but don’t forget that you won’t receive that extra $250 monthly until you reach your full retirement age, which in this scenario means waiting four years. Since you’d have a reduced amount of $750 monthly, you’d receive a $36,000 total amount during those four years.
And now let’s say you begin receiving an extra $250 per month which means you’ll get $1,000 at age 66. Well, you won’t be able to break even until after 12 years compared to claiming Social Security early. If you’re dealing with health problems and you don’t expect to reach the age of 78, you’ll earn more benefits during your lifetime if you decide to claim them as soon as possible.
6 thoughts on “Claiming Social Security Early: 8 Reasons Why You Should Do This”
Some basic information that every retiree needs to know in evaluating when to pull the trigger on Social Security Benefits. Thank you.
I looked at what my lifestyle will be when I start my SS. Early I will be more vibrant and able to do things. Also I did the simple math and found I would be pretty old by the time the I caught up with the amount I got while taking the earliest benefits.
We tried but were denied.
If you are 62 or older and have contributed for 10 pr more years you cannot be denied. I worked full-time for 46 years starting at age 16 (yes 16…48 hrs a week at a gas station while in HS) I took early retirement at age 61 in November 2017, And claimed benefits to start in March 2018 when I turned 62. My wife is retiring in April and just recieved her first payment this week and just turned 66 this week. If you were denied you either didn’t have enough credits were not 62 or did something wrong filing. Call Social Security and find out.
Why can a widow not claim her husbands survior benefits if married 38 years if she worked for a City government and she only get $350 and she would receive $1000 on his side which would help her payoff the credit card debt he left her on her card-they say it is because of her City check is a little higher but that should not factor into it – she supported him for 38 years – WHY can’t she not get the beneft to help pay off the credit card?
She can get her social security or his, but not both. So take the larger amount!