It's nice that Social Security gives you different options when it comes to claiming benefits. While the earliest age to sign up is 62, from there, you can basically file at any time.
Sure, there's no financial incentive to delay your claim past age 70. So at that point, you should sign up if you haven't done so already.
But if you want to claim Social Security at age 65 in conjunction with your Medicare enrollment, that's your choice. And if you decide you want to file at age 64 because it'll allow you to retire at the same time as your spouse, that's an option, too.
Image source: Getty Images.
But you may be struggling to land on the right Social Security filing age because there are pros and cons to each. And that's understandable. Rather than stress, though, you may want to tell yourself you'll just sit tight until age 67.
Why age 67 is a great middle-ground solution
If you were born in 1960 or later, age 67 is full retirement age for Social Security purposes. This means that at 67, you're eligible for your complete monthly Social Security benefit based on your individual earnings history.
Filing beforehand will result in a reduction in your benefits, while delaying your claim past full retirement age will result in boosted benefits. So if you're not sure what to do, 67 reads like a good compromise.
To put it another way, age 67 is essentially when you're "supposed" to sign up for Social Security if you were born in 1960 or any time after. It doesn't mean you have to. But if you're not sure, it's a good age to fall back on.
See, the risk of claiming Social Security too early isn't just reducing your monthly payments. It's also ending up with less lifetime income from Social Security than you'd get with a later filing. And claiming benefits at age 70 introduces the opposite problem -- you get a boosted payment each month, but by virtue of waiting, you risk ending up with less lifetime Social Security income if you wind up passing away at a fairly young age.
Age 67 is an age when you may be more likely to break even if you have average health. You're not reducing your monthly payments, but you're also not waiting too long to start collecting them.
It's really all a gamble
You could easily make the argument for claiming Social Security at any age between 62 and 70. But at the end of the day, since no one has a crystal ball, any filing decision you make puts you at risk of ending up with less lifetime income from Social Security than you could've gotten with a different claiming age.
Age 67 allows you to mitigate that risk because you're not filing at one end of the spectrum versus the other. So if that's your full retirement age and you're at a loss as to when to sign up, you may just want to make your life easier and land on 67.
The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy .
Most Popular
Comments / 0