The claim age sets the check

Published 2026-09-21 · Last reviewed 2026-09-23

Most of a retirement decision is unknowable in advance - how long you will live, whether the benefit gets taxed, what a spouse already earns. One piece of it is not guesswork at all: the Social Security Administration publishes the exact percentage a start age produces, and a worker's primary insurance amount is a fixed number once the work history is fixed. This page takes that one piece and prices it. The example is a worker born in 1960, whose full retirement age is 67, with a monthly average indexed earnings figure, an AIME, of $9,000. Everything below is that worker's own table, generated by the same function the calculator runs.

The base: what the benefit is a percentage of

Social Security does not quote one benefit; it quotes a primary insurance amount and then applies an age adjustment to it. For this worker the AIME of $9,000 a month produces a primary insurance amount of $3,413 a month. The first portion of the earnings below the first bend point is replaced at 90% percent, the slice between the bend points at 32%, and only 15% of the earnings above the second - those are the published replacement shares. That base is the number the start age then multiplies: claim at the full retirement age of 67 and the check is exactly 100% of it, $3,413 a month.

Claim early, and the reduction runs at two speeds

Retire before the full retirement age and the benefit is cut, but not in one line. The first thirty-six months before 67 each cost five-ninths of one percent a month, and the months after that cost five-twelfths - the two published rates. Claiming at 62 is sixty months early here, so the combined reduction is 30% percent of the PIA: the check falls to 70% of what it would be at 67, or $2,389 a month instead of $3,413. That reduction is the engine's own arithmetic, and it is the whole reason the "claim at 62" answer, treated as a rule, does not survive a look at the dollars.

Wait, and the credit keeps paying to 70

On the other side, every month of delay past 67 earns a delayed retirement credit of two-thirds of one percent - the 8% a year the credit is named for - and it stops counting at age 69. Claiming at 70 is thirty-six months late, so the credit is 24% percent: the check is 124% of the PIA, $4,232 a month. Set the two ends against each other and the start age becomes the biggest single number on the page: waiting the eight years from 62 to 70 raises the monthly check by 77% - from $2,389to $4,232 a month, $28,668 against $50,784 a year.

What eight years of waiting costs, and buys

The honest way to read the two ends is not to declare one right. Claiming at 62pays $2,389 but starts today; claiming at 70 pays $4,232but those first eight years of checks are given up. Over a single decade, the early start collects $286,680 and the late one $507,840; the late start only overtakes once it has been collecting at the higher rate long enough. That crossover is not a number this engine is written to pick, because it depends on a life expectancy nobody knows in advance - but the engine does close off the lazy versions of the argument. A 24%monthly gain is not a rounding error, and a 30% monthly cut is not a detail. The start age is the lever, and the whole range is below.

The whole 62-to-70 table

• Claiming at 62: 70% of the PIA, $2,389 a month, $28,668 a year - $1,024 less than at 67.
• Claiming at 63: 75% of the PIA, $2,559 a month, $30,708 a year - $854 less than at 67.
• Claiming at 64: 80% of the PIA, $2,730 a month, $32,760 a year - $683 less than at 67.
• Claiming at 65: 87% of the PIA, $2,958 a month, $35,496 a year - $455 less than at 67.
• Claiming at 66: 93% of the PIA, $3,185 a month, $38,220 a year - $228 less than at 67.
• Claiming at 67: 100% of the PIA, $3,413 a month, $40,956 a year - $0 more than at 67.
• Claiming at 68: 108% of the PIA, $3,686 a month, $44,232 a year - $273 more than at 67.
• Claiming at 69: 116% of the PIA, $3,959 a month, $47,508 a year - $546 more than at 67.
• Claiming at 70: 124% of the PIA, $4,232 a month, $50,784 a year - $819 more than at 67.

Where these numbers come from

• Every figure follows the same Social Security rules. The primary insurance amount is the published bend-point calculation, the age percentages are five-ninths and five-twelfths of a percent for early months (about 0.5556% and 0.4167% a month) and two-thirds for delayed credit (about 0.6667% a month), and the whole table applies those percentages to the same inputs. That is the same calculation the Social Security Calculator runs.
• The AIME is an input, not a computed line. Turning a career's wage history into an indexed 35-year average needs the national average wage index for every year worked, which this site does not reproduce, so the calculator takes the AIME as given and says so beside the field.
• Credits and reductions are rounded the way SSA rounds. The monthly payment is the adjusted PIA rounded down to the next lower dollar, exactly as the published rule does.

What this guide does not cover

This page prices the start-age lever only. It does not choose an age - the crossover depends on how long the benefit is collected, and the engine deliberately leaves that call to the reader. It does not add the COLAs that will lift these 2026 dollars between now and the year the benefit starts, does not tax benefits under federal rules, and does not model spousal, survivor or disability benefits, the earnings test for people working past 62, or the wage indexing that turns a real career into an AIME. None of that changes the percentages here, which are the published rules; it only changes which column applies to a particular household.

Run your own numbers in the Social Security Calculator, see what a decade of work has to grow into in the Retirement Calculator, or check what you are actually paid today in the Paycheck Calculator.

An estimate under published Social Security rules - not legal, tax or financial advice. Read the full disclaimer.