Guides › Social Security Timing
Updated July 30, 2026. Quick answer (2026): Every breakeven argument assumes you reach the breakeven age. Undiscounted, 62-versus-70 breaks even around 80.3. With a materially shorter horizon the arithmetic inverts and claiming early is simply the larger number.
A shortened horizon changes more than the claiming date.
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Every breakeven argument has a precondition
Breakeven at 80.3 is only an argument for waiting if you reach 80.3. Reduce the horizon and the comparison does not merely narrow — it reverses. There is no crossover at all, and claiming early is simply the larger number.
Run your own horizon rather than a population average
Published breakeven ages implicitly use average life expectancy. Averages are the wrong input for an individual decision, in both directions: a serious diagnosis, or a family history of longevity, should move this more than any assumption about returns. The calculator on the claiming age calculator takes the planning horizon as a field for exactly this reason.
The exception that matters: a surviving spouse
If you are married and you are the higher earner, a shorter personal horizon does not straightforwardly argue for claiming early, because your claiming age sets the survivor benefit your spouse may collect for years afterwards. The decision is measured over the joint horizon, not yours. For an unmarried person with a materially shortened horizon, the arithmetic is unambiguous.
What this page is not saying
Not that claiming early is generally right — on average horizons it usually is not. The claim here is narrower: the breakeven framework is conditional, and when the condition fails, so does the conclusion drawn from it.
Related
Methodology
- Claim-age adjustments are taken from the text of 20 CFR 404.410 (worker 5/9 of 1% for the first 36 months, 5/12 of 1% beyond; spouse 25/36 of 1% for the first 36 months) and 20 CFR 404.313 (delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% per month, born after 1 January 1943, ending at age 70). Both were read on 2026-07-30.
- Your full-retirement-age benefit is an INPUT taken from your SSA statement. This site does not compute a benefit from an earnings record, because the bend points that formula uses are re-indexed annually and would rot within a year.
- COLA and opportunity cost are your own assumptions, never forecasts baked into the page. Where a discount rate is applied, both streams are discounted from a common date — discounting each stream from its own claiming age flatters delaying and is a common error.
- Figures were computed by two independently written engines that agree to the cent, and the calculator reproduces both exactly.
- Excludes taxation of benefits, the earnings test, and Medicare premium effects.
Educational estimate, not advice. Confirm anything that changes a claiming decision against your own SSA statement and with a qualified adviser.
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