When should I claim Social Security?
For someone in average health reaching their mid-60s, deferring to 70 raises expected lifetime benefits — it is the cheapest longevity insurance available, and the gain is largest for the higher earner in a couple.
Delaying increases the monthly benefit permanently and it is indexed to inflation, so what you are buying is a larger inflation-linked income for as long as you live. No private AnnuityA contract that exchanges a lump sum for income guaranteed until death. It transfers the risk of living a long time to an insurer, which is exactly the risk a portfolio handles worst.Read the evidence on this → sells that combination on comparable terms.
The framing that leads people astray is the break-even calculation — 'how long do I have to live to come out ahead'. It treats the decision as a bet on your own lifespan, when the actual risk being managed is the opposite: living longer than the money lasts. Insurance is not supposed to pay off on average.
For couples the survivor benefit does much of the work. The higher earner's decision sets the floor for whichever partner lives longer, which is why delaying that one specifically carries more weight than delaying the other.
When the answer is different
- Poor health or a family history of short lifespans genuinely changes the answer, and claiming earlier can be right.
- If claiming early is what lets you retire at all, the comparison is not benefit against benefit — it is against working longer, which has its own value.
Put your own numbers to it
Every answer here is general. These are not.
- Retirement number
How much do I need, and am I on track?
The research this rests on
Each note states its claim, rates how strong the evidence actually is, and lists the conditions under which it fails.
- Delaying Social Security is the cheapest longevity insurance available
For someone in average health reaching their mid-60s, deferring Social Security to age 70 raises expected lifetime benefits, and the gain is largest for the higher earner in a married couple because the survivor inherits the larger benefit. (moderate)
- Mortality pooling raises safe income, and almost nobody buys it
Pooling longevity risk lets a given pot support more lifetime income than any self-managed withdrawal rule can safely promise, yet voluntary annuitisation rates are a small fraction of what standard economic models predict. (moderate)
- Planning to life expectancy is planning to run out half the time
Life expectancy is a median, so a plan funded to that horizon fails for roughly half of the people who use it, and individuals systematically misjudge their own survival odds at older ages. (strong)
Terms used on this page
The same definitions the underlined words open, written out so nothing on this page depends on a click.
- Annuity
- A contract that exchanges a lump sum for income guaranteed until death. It transfers the risk of living a long time to an insurer, which is exactly the risk a portfolio handles worst. Evidence →