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Updated July 30, 2026. Quick answer (2026): With a full retirement age of 67, claiming at 62 is a permanent 30% reduction: 36 months at 5/9 of 1% plus 24 months at 5/12 of 1%. On a $2,000 benefit that is $1,400 versus $2,000, and the undiscounted breakeven is about age 78.6.
A permanent 30% decision is worth a second opinion.
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Where the 30% actually comes from
It is two different rates, not one. The first 36 months before full retirement age cost 5/9 of 1 percent each — that is 20 percent. The remaining 24 months cost 5/12 of 1 percent each — another 10 percent. Together, 30 percent, permanently, on a $2,000 benefit that is $1,400 for life.
The five years of cheques you are buying with it
Claiming at 62 collects 60 monthly payments before the 67-year-old claimant receives anything at all: $84,000 on these numbers. That head start is the whole argument for claiming early, and it takes until roughly age 78.6 for the larger cheque to catch it, with no COLA and no return assumed.
What moves that number
A COLA assumption moves breakeven earlier, because the adjustment is applied to a larger base if you waited. An opportunity-cost assumption moves it later, because the early cheques are earning. Those two pull in opposite directions, which is why a single published breakeven age is close to meaningless without both.
The permanent part
This reduction does not end at full retirement age. It is not an advance against a larger benefit later. A 62-year-old claimant is on the reduced amount at 75, at 85, and at 95, adjusted only by COLA. That permanence is what makes the decision worth more than the ten minutes most people give 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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