One retiree signed up for Social Security at 65 because that’s what everyone around him did. Turns out that was the old rule. The map he was reading said 65 is retirement age, so 65 is when the checks start. Except waiting past your full retirement age bumps the benefit about 8% a year, all the way to 70. He didn’t wait. Now he watches that math play out every month.
His regret, laid out at GOBankingRates, isn’t about one bad decision. It’s about running on a plan built for a different era. Longer lifespans. A higher full retirement age than his parents had. The number in his head was stale, and nobody flagged it. He collected early, locked in a smaller check for good, and figured out the tradeoff after the fact.
Claim at 65 instead of 70 and you lock in a check that’s roughly 24% smaller for life. That gap follows you every month you’re alive, which is the part people underweight when they’re staring down a few lean years in their early 60s.
The move here isn’t automatic, though. If you’ve got health issues or no way to bridge the income, claiming early can still beat waiting. Run your own break-even before you assume 70 is the answer.
The math on waiting is almost embarrassingly good. Hold off from 65 to 70 and each check is roughly 8% bigger per year, guaranteed, which is a return no bond is handing you right now.
But the guy who wrote this had his reasons at 65, and most people do. The break-even point sits somewhere in your early 80s, so the whole bet comes down to how long you think you’ll live and how much you trust the checks to keep coming. Nobody selling you the “claim early, it might run out” line knows either.
Sources: gobankingrates.com
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