When Should I Take Social Security Benefits? Questions to Consider

This brief is one component of a toolkit of materials designed to educate workers approaching retirement about their options for taking Social Security benefits, and about why - if you can - it pays to wait. The brief is available for download here. The rest of the toolkit - a 3-minute video, a factsheet, and a brochure, can be found on NASI's website.

Social Security benefits can be taken at any time between 62 and 70, but there are sound financial reasons to delay if you can. If you wait, your monthly benefits will be higher for the rest of your life.

If you need Social Security to make ends meet, take it - you’ve earned it. But if you can wait, even a year or two, your monthly benefit will be higher - for the rest of your life. If you’re married, you have two lives to plan for. If you are the higher earner, waiting to take Social Security means providing a higher survivor benefit for your spouse if she or he outlives you.

Keywords: Social Security

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Reno, Virginia P. and Tucker, Jasmine and Walker, Elisa, When Should I Take Social Security Benefits? Questions to Consider (March 6, 2014). Social Security Brief - National Academy of Social Insurance, March 2014, No. 43, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2405618