Confirmed by experts: this is the key age to apply for your Social Security benefits starting January 1, 2025

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When is the best time to start receiving Social Security benefits and retire? After hitting sixty-two, this is one of the most important issues that an American worker has to answer. Everybody has a distinctive strategy that works for their circumstances, even when the economic answer is obvious in terms of immediate advantage.

There are four main ages at which employees usually decide to retire, but many people just quit whenever it’s convenient for them without really considering the age they’ve chosen, which can be a mistake.

The pros and cons of collecting Social Security at every age

When filing for benefits, your years of experience are the first factor taken into account. Benefits are calculated based on a worker’s greatest 35 years of earnings, thus having worked for at least that long is essential. If not, there will be zeros in the calculation, which will drastically reduce the amount.

The earliest you may start receiving Social Security benefits is age 62, so if you have 35 years left, you might want to think about retiring at that age. There is a small catch: you will lose 30% of your benefits if you start receiving them at this age, and you won’t be able to get it back.

Even though this can seem like a bad deal, people with health issues or short life expectancies might benefit from it since it might be worth delaying the loss of benefits in return for money and a break from work.

65 is another common retirement age. This is still the age at which a person is eligible for Medicare, and it was the original retirement age before it was raised following the Social Security crisis of the 1980s. Due to access to subsidized healthcare and a lower income loss (86.7% at full retirement age), those with higher healthcare costs may benefit from retiring at full retirement age.

The next most popular retiring age is full retirement age, which is 67 for people born in 1960 or after. The majority of workers believe that this is a good time to retire because you have enough years to enjoy life and are in good health. If you retire at this age, you will collect all of your benefits.

Of course, there is a third option—delaying benefit payments until one is 70 years old—that not many people know about and that most low-income workers cannot afford unless they have no other option. This decision will not be adversely affected if you cease working at full retirement age in order to receive the maximum Social Security benefit. You must not, however, begin to receive benefits.

For every year you postpone retirement until you are 70 years old, the Social Security Administration raises your retirement benefits by 8%, meaning you might get up to 124% of your retirement amount each month.

Since Social Security is frequently insufficient to meet their needs, many people choose to forego this option even if they continue to work in order to increase their income and improve their quality of life. It makes sense that many people cannot afford to wait so long to receive their benefits, as the average payout in the US for those who retire at age 70 is $1,963.48.

These are all the percentages that an employee can receive, in case you were wondering. In any event, one can retire at any time between the ages of 62 and 70, and the percentage of benefits they will receive will vary depending on their actual age.

Sixty-two percent

63 75%

64 80%

65.7%

66 93.3%

67 percent

68 108%

69 116%

70 124%

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