Guides › Social Security Timing
Updated July 30, 2026. Quick answer (2026): A COLA is applied to whatever base you have, so a larger delayed benefit compounds from a higher starting point. At a 2.5% assumption the 62-versus-70 breakeven moves EARLIER, from about 80.3 to about 78.4, strengthening the case for waiting.
Inflation assumptions belong in a whole plan, not one page.
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A COLA compounds on whatever base you built
Cost-of-living adjustments are applied proportionally to the benefit you are receiving. A larger benefit therefore receives a larger absolute increase every year, forever. Delaying does not just buy a bigger cheque — it buys a bigger base for every future adjustment to work on.
It moves breakeven earlier, not later
On a 62-versus-70 comparison, moving from a zero COLA assumption to 2.5 percent moves the breakeven age from about 80.3 to about 78.4. Inflation strengthens the case for waiting, which is the opposite of most people's intuition that inflation makes money now more valuable.
Why the intuition misfires
The instinct that inflation favours taking money early is right about cash and wrong about an indexed annuity, which is what Social Security is. Because the benefit itself is indexed, inflation does not erode it — it scales it. And it scales the larger number by more.
COLA is an input here, deliberately
No forecast is baked into this page. Nobody knows what future adjustments will be, and a tool that quietly assumes one is asserting something it cannot support. Put your own number in and watch which direction it moves the answer — the direction is the durable finding, not the specific age.
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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