Maximizing Your Social Security Payout

You can start drawing Social Security benefits any time between the ages of 62 and 70.

The longer you wait to start, the greater your monthly benefit. If you start at age 62, you get about 75% of your retirement benefits; and if you wait until age 66, you get 100%. But if defer for the maximum period, until age 70, you get 132%. Given the chance to collect more benefits later in life, people frequently ask, “When should I start collecting?”

In a recent Washington Post article, Alan Sloan explains that if you wait until age 70, you must live well over a decade to make up the difference having failed to receive benefits earlier. The author provides good support for his thesis that retirees should start drawing as soon as they can collect 100% of their allotted benefits. It takes 12.5 years of a 132% benefit to make up for the four years missed at 100%. In other words, retirees who delay benefits until age 70 and don’t live another 12.5 years will have gambled and lost.