Enter your Primary Insurance Amount — the monthly benefit payable at your full retirement age — pick the FRA that matches your birth year, and choose two claiming ages. The tool applies the SSA's published reduction and delayed-credit formulas, shows the monthly benefit each age produces, builds a cumulative total by age, and reports the age at which the later claim overtakes the earlier one. It does not tell you when to claim, and you should not let a breakeven age tell you either.
Read this before you read the number. Breakeven arithmetic answers exactly one question: how long you must live for the larger delayed benefit to add up to more total dollars. That is a real question, and it is one input among several. It is not the whole decision, and treating it as the whole decision is the most common mistake made with this page’s output. The factors it cannot see — your health and family longevity, whether you are married and whose record the survivor benefit will come from, whether you are still working, what you would otherwise spend down in the meantime, and your tax picture — routinely outweigh it. For a married couple, the survivor benefit alone often matters more than the breakeven age does. There is a section on that below, and you should read it.
Your two claiming ages
Arithmetic on the PIA you typed
Do not decide from this number. A breakeven age answers one narrow question — when the cumulative dollars cross — and it answers it by assuming you know how long you will live. It cannot see your health, whether you are still working, or the thing that most often dominates the arithmetic for a married couple: the survivor benefit, which is based on the higher earner's record including any delayed credits and continues for the rest of the survivor's life. For many couples the right answer is driven by protecting that benefit, not by a crossover age. The full treatment is here, the three claiming ages compared side by side are here, and the only record of your actual numbers is your own at ssa.gov/myaccount.
Cumulative totals by age, so the crossover is visible
Total benefits received through the end of each age year, in nominal dollars, no COLA and no tax. The shaded row is the first age at which the later claim is ahead.
| Age | Claim at 62 | Claim at 70 | Difference |
|---|
The rules this tool applies, and where they come from
- Early: minus 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months before FRA, then minus 5/12 of 1% beyond 36. From an FRA of 67, claiming at 62 is 60 months early — 36 × 5/9 of 1% = 20%, plus 24 × 5/12 of 1% = 10%. A 30% reduction, so 70% of PIA, matching the SSA's table.
- Delayed: plus 2/3 of 1% per month, or 8% a year, for anyone born in 1943 or later. Credits accrue only between FRA and 70. From an FRA of 67, waiting to 70 is 36 months — 24%, so 124% of PIA, again matching the SSA's table.
- FRA is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later, stepping down in two-month increments to 66 for those born 1943–1954.
- 62 is the earliest claiming age; 70 is the last age at which waiting adds anything.
Assumptions used — read these before trusting the number
- No cost-of-living adjustments. Every figure is nominal. A real COLA compounds on the larger benefit, so including it would move the crossover slightly earlier.
- No time value of money. A dollar received at 62 can be invested for eight years before a dollar at 70 arrives. Treating both as equal cuts the other way — discounting at any positive rate pushes the crossover later.
- No taxes. Up to 85% of benefits can be federally taxable depending on your other income; California does not tax them. The taxable share can differ between the scenarios.
- Whole years only. Benefits are assumed to begin in the month you reach the chosen age; month-of-entitlement rules are ignored. Real claims can be filed in any month.
- Delayed credits are treated as payable immediately. In practice, if you start before 70, some are not applied until the January after you start.
- Spousal and survivor benefits are excluded entirely, as are the earnings test, disability, children's and divorced-spouse benefits and the family maximum.
- Still working before FRA? The earnings test withholds $1 for every $2 earned above $24,480 in 2026, or $1 for every $3 above $65,160 in the year you reach FRA. Withheld benefits are not lost — SSA recalculates at FRA to credit them. Not modelled here. Source: SSA — Exempt amounts under the retirement earnings test.
- No claiming age is recommended by this page, and none should be inferred. The breakeven age is a fact about the numbers you typed, not a conclusion about what to do.
Why survivor benefits often outrank the breakeven age
For a married couple this is not two independent decisions. When one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits, not both — so the higher earner’s claiming age sets the floor under household income for as long as either of them lives, which is usually longer than either life alone.
The mechanics run both ways. A widow or widower’s benefit is 100% of the deceased worker’s primary insurance amount plus any delayed retirement credits the deceased earned, so credits carry forward to the survivor. But if the worker claimed early, the widow’s limit provision caps the survivor benefit at the greater of what the worker would have been receiving or 82.5% of the worker’s PIA — an early claim by the higher earner permanently constrains the survivor too. Survivor benefits are themselves reduced if claimed early, starting at 71.5% at age 60.
None of that appears in a breakeven calculation, which models one person collecting one benefit. It is a different question, it cuts differently for the lower earner than the higher earner, and for most married couples it is the more important one. Our full treatment of the claiming decision covers it.
If you worked for a California public employer, one thing changed in 2025
The Social Security Fairness Act was signed on 5 January 2025 and ended the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset, both of which had cut or eliminated Social Security benefits for people drawing a pension from employment not covered by Social Security. It applies to benefits payable for January 2024 and later, so it reached back before the signing date.
That matters a great deal around here. CalSTRS members are generally not covered by Social Security for their teaching service, and many CalPERS, LACERA, LACERS, LAFPP, OCERS and UCRP members are in the same position for part of their careers, while also holding covered earnings from other jobs or a spouse with a record. WEP cut the first group’s own benefit; GPO wiped out the second group’s spousal or survivor benefit. Neither does now, so a claiming analysis run before 2025 is out of date and worth redoing. Our California public pension pages cover the systems, and CalSTRS and Social Security covers the interaction.
This is an estimate, not advice. The output above is arithmetic performed on the numbers you entered, under the assumptions printed on this page. It is not a recommendation, not a projection you should rely on, and not a substitute for a conversation with your CPA or a qualified adviser about your own situation.
Common questions
So what is the right age to claim?
We will not answer that on a web page, and we would be uneasy about any adviser who did. It depends on your health and family longevity, whether you are married and which of you has the larger record, whether you are still working, what you would otherwise draw down meanwhile, and your tax picture. A breakeven age is one input. Anyone who can name your claiming age without knowing those facts is guessing.
Why is a breakeven age the wrong way to decide on its own?
Because it silently assumes you know how long you will live, that a dollar today and a dollar in twenty years are the same thing, that you are single, and that taxes do not exist. Change any one and the comparison moves. Delaying is less a bet on longevity than insurance against outliving your other money — and insurance is not judged by whether it pays off on average.
Does waiting past 70 help?
No. Delayed retirement credits stop at 70, so after that you are simply not collecting benefits you are entitled to, with nothing added in exchange. One of the few unambiguous facts in the subject.
I am a California teacher — does any of this apply to me?
More than it used to. The Fairness Act ended WEP and GPO for benefits payable from January 2024, so a CalSTRS member with covered earnings from other work, or a spouse with a record, is no longer subject to either reduction. Whether you have enough covered quarters to qualify at all is a separate question your Social Security Statement answers.
Sources
- SSA — Early or Late Retirement — early-claiming reduction factors
- SSA — Delayed Retirement Credits — delayed retirement credit rates
- SSA — Starting Your Retirement Benefits Early — FRA by birth year, and PIA payable at 62
- SSA Handbook §407 — Widow(er)'s Insurance Benefit — how the survivor benefit is computed
- SSA — The Widow(er)'s Limit Provision — the survivor cap after an early claim
- SSA — Survivors Benefit Amounts — survivor reduction for early claiming
- SSA — Social Security Fairness Act — the WEP and GPO repeal
- SSA — Retirement Earnings Test Exempt Amounts — 2026 earnings-test exempt amounts
- SSA — Get your Social Security Statement — where your own PIA comes from
Sources reviewed August 2026. Rules, rates and thresholds change; the linked originals are always the authority, not this page.
Claiming decision coming up?
We look at it as a household: both records, the survivor benefit, what you would otherwise spend down meanwhile, the earnings test, and what the Fairness Act changed if you have a California public pension. Fee-only, fees published, nothing to sell you.