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Another Vote Against Claiming Benefits at Age 62
Statistically speaking, you’re a rare case if you wait until age 70 to begin drawing your Social Security benefit. As many (most?) financial advisors suggest, you’re also a savvy planner, since your monthly benefit will be maximized–fully 24% greater than if you’d have filed at a full retirement age of 67. That’s one side of the equation…the other is the fact that many–about a third of all filers–opt to begin drawing benefits at the earliest possible age (62). The early filing option gives you substantially future monthly dollars, but eight years of cash flow.
So, what’s the best approach? Well, it depends, and it depends on a variety of factors like your health and your expected longevity, your other available financial resources, and the impact on your survivors, for example. It’s one of the most frequent questions we deal with here at the free-to-the-public AMAC Foundation Social Security Advisory Service, and our approach is to ensure a complete understanding of the consequences of filing early vs. late or at any point in between.
In any event, it can be complex, and we frequently post articles on this website discussing the issue. Today, we’re sharing a USAToday.com post by The Motley Fool’s Matthew Frankel, CFP® offering details on the filing issue, showing the progression of monthly benefit payments at various ages. His article also covers many of the factors that go into making the decision. Check it out here…