A record number of people are claiming Social Security — but what's really the best age to start?

San Francisco Chronicle​

8 hours ago

Elon Musk may have made a recent dramatic exit from DOGE, but the impact of his cost-cutting crusade in the federal government is still being felt widely — including among Social Security recipients.
DOGE cuts to Social Security staff, closures of field offices and restrictions on filing by phone caused confusion and fear among recipients and applicants. The uproar was so great that the agency walked back many of the changes.
But rising concerns about the future of the program may be driving many people to apply for their Social Security benefits earlier than they otherwise would have — and that can have permanent, long-term consequences for their financial well-being, according to experts.
More Americans than ever filed for Social Security benefits in the first half of the fiscal year. According to Social Security data, the Urban Institute found 267,000 more claims filed from October to April than in that time period in the previous year, and found more seniors were claiming it early — before the full retirement age of 67.
That amounts to a 13% year-over-year increase in claims. Over the decade before that, claims typically only grew by 3% a year.
While the institute said an increase in eligible recipients from the baby boomer population and new notification requirements were likely factors, those did not fully explain the recent surge in early filing. The acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration said fear and confusion over DOGE cuts were at play, with calls to the SSA and visits to field offices also on the rise.
Laura Quinby, who studies Social Security and other topics as the associate director of research for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said if people think the program isn't going to exist or is going to be cut in the near future, it makes them want to pull money out of it while they still can.
In 2021, she co-authored a report showing that anxiety about the future of Social Security as perceived through headlines drove people to say they'd claim their benefits earlier than they would have otherwise.
A reader named Marie wrote to me to say the election had influenced her decision to go ahead and apply for her benefits. Though she'd initially planned to wait until she turned 70 in 2026 to claim Social Security, 'with Trump being elected it seemed like the difference between collecting this year versus next year wasn't worth it.' She said she started taking it in February.
But claiming early — even by one year — comes with a downside: Though you're eligible to claim Social Security benefits as early as 62, you get an 8% increase in benefits for every year you wait, up to age 70, when the maximum benefit kicks in. The maximum monthly benefit if you start claiming at age 62 in 2025 is $2,831. If you waited until age 70 to start claiming this year, your monthly benefit could be as high as $5,108.
'Fear has really started to set in among seniors who are jumping on to Social Security at the age of 62 in record numbers because they feel like, 'I've got to get on this thing because it might be gone,' and people weren't thinking that way until this year,' said Chris Orestis, the president and founder of Retirement Genius. 'You had skepticism, but you didn't have fear.'
Fear is rarely a good reason to make a decision as life-altering as when you claim Social Security. So how should seniors be thinking about this choice? Here's what experts say.
Should people be worried about the future of Social Security?
People are concerned about the future of the program, one of the bedrocks of retirement in America since it began in 1935. Quinby was specifically studying how people responded to headlines about the potential future insolvency of the program as it is structured now. The most recent report from the Social Security Trustees, issued in May, indicated that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund 'will be able to pay 100 percent of total scheduled benefits until 2033.'
But that doesn't mean Social Security is doomed to disappear in eight years. If the program kept running as it does now with no changes, the report said Social Security would still be able to pay out 79% of current benefits starting in 2033.
And there are many tools at the government's disposal to tweak Social Security and bolster that trust fund or otherwise augment the program, said Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and author of the book 'How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful and Wealthy Retirement.'
Those could include lifting the current cap on income that's taxed for Social Security, adding means testing for recipients, increasing the payroll tax, upping the age you can claim, or a variety of other instruments.
Benz said she sometimes hears from young people who tell her they just assume they'll never get a dime from Social Security. She said she doesn't think that's true. The program will have to be changed to maintain the current level of benefits, but it's highly improbable that it will go away in any of our lifetimes. She said for people who are currently age 55 or older, she wouldn't anticipate any changes to benefit amounts.
'The idea that there would be meaningful changes to their promised benefits seems to me incredibly unlikely,' she said. 'I think Congress would open every cupboard and turn over every drawer before upending people's promised benefits.'
It makes sense that the recent headlines have made people nervous, Orestis said. Currently, $700 billion in cuts to Medicaid and SNAP are on the table in the 'Big Beautiful Bill,' Trump's spending and tax package working its way through Congress. But unlike those programs, he said, Social Security and Medicare are supported by armies of lobbyists, activists, advocacy organizations and a committed voting base of senior citizens.
Simply put: These programs are popular, and most politicians — who, unlike Musk, all need to be reelected at some point — won't want to risk the backlash to any serious cuts.
While we should take Musk and his DOGE cohort at their word that they're looking to root out waste and fraud, Orestis said he thinks they're unlikely to find much in Social Security. The changes made by DOGE so far have faced immense pushback, and some, like cuts to phone service, have already been undone.
And though the Trump administration and DOGE seem to be running the show now, Orestis said that insolvency date eight years from now is 'an eternity' in the world of politics.
What's the best age to claim Social Security?
When you choose to take Social Security, you're locking yourself in at that amount of monthly benefits. Apart from the yearly cost of living adjustment, there's no way to go back or 'pause' receiving benefits to take advantage of a later retirement age.
For 40% of retirees, Social Security makes up more than half their income; for about a third, it makes up all of it. Therefore, it is generally to your benefit to delay taking it as long as possible, so that you maximize your monthly fixed income.
Of course, what's broadly right for a lot of people isn't necessarily right for you. If you are unable to work and have no other means of income, then you need to claim Social Security. And if you have a family history of shorter lifespans, it could make more financial sense to claim earlier. Social Security distributes benefits with the assumption that the average person will have an average lifespan, currently 84 for men and 87 for women; up until that age, the total lifetime amount you collect from Social Security would be about the same whether you claimed at 62 or 70. If people in your family generally don't live that long, collecting on the earlier side could mean you bring in more income from Social Security overall than you would have if you'd waited longer, though you'd have less monthly income at your disposal in your later years.
It's also OK to take your anxiety about the news into account as you make your decision, said Hal Hershfield, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management who studies behavioral decision-making.
'If you feel like you're someone that will get value out of dialing down the uncertainty by taking the money now, but knowing full well that if you had waited, you might have actually worked out to have more money later, then maybe in that case it makes sense to claim earlier,' he said.
So the 'best' age, according to financial experts, is likely still 'as late as you possibly can.' But personal finance is always personal.
For people looking to delay taking Social Security but off-ramp from full-time work, there are options. Quinby said the Center for Retirement Research has looked at the so-called 'bridge option,' where people spend down their 401(k) or other savings in their 60s to facilitate delaying guaranteed inflation-protected Social Security income. Hershfield of UCLA said his parents opted to work part time. (If you continue working while claiming benefits, especially if you haven't reached full retirement age, your benefits will be reduced if you earn above a certain income level.)
Orestis of Retirement Genius said even if you go on Social Security at 62, you aren't eligible for Medicare until 65. He tells people to do whatever they can to at least stretch their working years with employer-sponsored health insurance until they can access those government-provided medical benefits.
He also recommended something everyone can do right now to protect their benefits: Log on to SSA.gov and create your account. From there, you can see your lifetime earnings from your very first paycheck. You can (and should) download those records so you have a hard copy in case anything ever happens to the federal government's database.