Social Security at 62 or 70: what each claim pays by the age you live to

By DecisionSheet · Updated September 26, 2026 · 2026 tax figures

Social Security retirement benefits are paid until the month before the month of death, so the total a claim pays depends on how long the claimant lives. DecisionSheet's calculator does not know that age. What it can show is the running total for each claiming age, year by year, so the question "which claim pays the most if I live to X?" can be read off for any X.

The case here is the calculator's default: a $2,800 monthly benefit at a full retirement age of 67, a 2.4% annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and a 3.0% discount rate, with totals to age 95. In plain dollars a claim at 62 has paid the most for anyone who lives through age 75 or less. A claim at 67 leads for ages 76 to 79, and a claim at 70 leads from age 80 to the end of the horizon.

The three checks being added up

The monthly benefit at full retirement age (FRA) is the primary insurance amount (PIA). A claim at 62 is 30% below it. A claim at 70 earns delayed retirement credits of 24% above it. The model also raises the PIA by the COLA every year from 62, whether or not benefits have started, so later claims start with more COLAs built in. That gives first monthly checks of $1,960 at 62, $3,153 at 67 and $4,197 at 70.

At the same age, the checks differ only by those two factors. At 70, the claimant who started at 62 receives $2,369 a month and the one who waited receives $4,197.

Totals by the age the claimant lives through

Each figure is the total paid through the end of that year of age: someone who lives through 80 and dies before 81 collects the "80" figure. Totals are before tax and in nominal dollars, where a dollar at 90 counts the same as a dollar at 62.

Open this scenario.

The calculator's own milestone table, above, shows ages 75, 80, 85 and 90 from the same scenario.

The lead passes from 62 to 67 to 70 once each and never returns. A claim at 70 has to overtake both other claims to lead. It passes the age-62 claim at 78 but the age-67 claim only at 80, so for ages 76 to 79 the middle claim has paid the most. Those crossover ages are the break-evens covered in Claim Social Security at 62, 67 or 70? Your break-even age in nominal and real terms; this guide looks at the size of the totals on either side of them.

How far behind, how far ahead

The two sides of the 62-versus-70 comparison are not the same size in this model.

• The shortfall has a floor. A claim at 70 is furthest behind a claim at 62 through age 69, the last year before its checks start. At that point it has been paid nothing and the age-62 claim has been paid $204,747. That is the largest gap in the age-62 claim's favor at any age.
• The lead has no ceiling within the horizon. From 70 on, the gap moves toward the later claim every year. In the first year the age-70 claim gains $21,935: twelve months of the difference between the two checks. Because both checks rise with the COLA, that yearly gain grows, to $39,686 in the year of age 95. Through 95 the age-70 claim is $574,552 ahead.

The same pattern holds for a claim at 67 against 62, on a smaller scale: it is furthest behind through age 66, by $123,382, and ends $344,433 ahead through 95.

These are the amounts at stake at each age, not odds. The model has no survival probabilities, so it cannot say how likely any age is, and a larger lead at 95 does not make 95 more likely.

In present value

Present value restates each payment as its worth at 62, dividing it by one plus the discount rate for each year after 62. The rate stands for what money received earlier could earn. It is an assumption, not a forecast. At the default 3.0%, later payments count for less, so each hand-over comes later:

In present value a claim at 62 leads through age 78, a claim at 67 for ages 79 to 82, and a claim at 70 from 83. The age-70 claim's deepest shortfall is $184,368, again through age 69, and its lead through 95 is $234,531. Discounting narrows the difference between the two sides, but at this rate the lead at 95 is still the larger of the two. The discount rate is a slider in the calculator; across its range, a higher rate never brings a hand-over earlier.

What the model does not decide

• How long anyone lives. The age is the reader's to supply. No mortality data enters the calculation.
• Spouses and survivors. There is no input for a spouse; spousal and survivor benefits are not modeled. The totals are one worker's own benefit.
• Taxes and the earnings test. All figures are before tax. Before FRA, an annual earnings test reduces benefits for excess earnings; the model pays benefits in full from the claim date.
• Other claim ages. Only 62, 67 and 70 are modeled, not the months between.

Assumptions and limits

• The PIA input is in the dollars of the year the claimant turns 62.
• The COLA and discount rate are fixed for the whole horizon, which ends at 95.
• Payments and COLAs step once per year of age, starting at the claim-age birthday, and a year of age counts in full: the model has no partial final year.
• Benefits are not rounded the way SSA rounds them.
• The COLA and discount rate are assumptions, not forecasts.

Method and sources

The model is calculateSocialSecurity in the Social Security claiming age calculator, run on the calculator's defaults. Every total above is a row of its year-by-year schedule; the data file checks that the lead passes from 62 to 67 to 70 exactly once each, and that the model's reduction and credit match the statutory fractions.

• 20 CFR 404.311: entitlement to old-age benefits ends with the month before the month of death.
• SSA POMS RS 00615.101: the reduction for claiming before full retirement age, 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond.
• 20 CFR 404.409: full retirement age of 67 for anyone born on or after January 2, 1960.
• 20 CFR 404.313: delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% a month from full retirement age to 70, for anyone born after January 1, 1943.
• 20 CFR 404.270 and 404.271: automatic December cost-of-living increases to the PIA, from the year a person becomes eligible.
• 20 CFR 404.415: the annual earnings test before full retirement age.

Open this scenario in the calculator

All figures on this page come from the Social Security Claiming Age calculator. Change any input there and the numbers update.