When Should You Claim Social Security?

Ask ten people when to claim Social Security and you will get ten answers. Most of them are guesses. This is one of the biggest money decisions of your entire life, and most people give it about an afternoon.

Why claiming early feels right

You paid into this your whole working life. Every paycheck, a piece went in. The day you are finally eligible, the pull to claim it is strong. It is yours, you earned it, why wait?

That feeling is completely normal. It is also one of the biggest reasons people claim too early and regret it later.

What you are actually deciding

Claiming is not really about getting your money back. It is about setting the size of a paycheck you will live on for the rest of your life.

Claim at the earliest age and you lock in the smallest check, permanently. Wait until your full retirement age and you get your full amount. Keep waiting past that and it keeps growing until it tops out at 70. Same person, same work record, a very different paycheck based only on when you start.

The decision that outlives you

For a married couple this is rarely a decision about one person. The larger of the two checks is the one the surviving spouse keeps, which means the claiming age you pick can still be setting somebody’s income twenty years from now.

Go deeper

The full written guide to claiming Social Security

The Social Security bridge strategy

Everything on this page is illustrative and hypothetical as of August 2026. It is education, not investment, tax, or legal advice. Any people shown are examples, not real clients, and your situation will differ. Withdrawal-rate rules of thumb are general guidance from published research and are not a prediction or a promise of any result. Protected Lifetime Income figures rely on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance company. Kurt H. Jackson is Life and Health Insurance Licensed in MO, NE, KS, IA, and FL, and is not a securities broker, registered investment advisor, or CPA.

Browse all of Kurt’s retirement videos on the Retirement Planning Videos page.