Claim Social Security at 62, 67 or 70? Your break-even age in nominal and real terms

By DecisionSheet · Updated September 22, 2026 · 2026 tax figures

Each month of delay between 62 and 70 raises a Social Security retirement check for life. The break-even age is the age by which the larger checks have made up for the ones not taken. DecisionSheet's calculator reports it in nominal dollars, where a dollar at 90 counts the same as a dollar at 62, and in present value at a discount rate.

The case here is the calculator's default: a $2,800 benefit at a full retirement age of 67, a 2.4% annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and a 3.0% discount rate. A claim at 70 overtakes a claim at 62 at age 78 in nominal dollars and at 80 in present value.

How the three claiming ages differ

The benefit at full retirement age (FRA) is the primary insurance amount (PIA): the monthly amount before any reduction or credit. For anyone born on or after January 2, 1960, FRA is 67. Claiming early cuts the PIA by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months before FRA and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond that, so a claim at 62, 60 months early, is reduced 30%. Delaying past FRA earns a delayed retirement credit of 2/3 of 1% a month, 8% a year, until 70: 24% in all.

The model also raises the PIA by the COLA every year from 62, whether or not benefits have started. The regulations apply cost-of-living increases to a PIA from December of the year the person becomes eligible, and eligibility begins at 62. So the model reads the $2,800 input as the PIA in the dollars of the year the claimant turns 62:

Open this scenario.

The two columns answer different questions. At the same age, the age-70 check is 77% larger than a 62 claimant's: the ratio of 124% to 70% of the PIA. First check against first check it is 114% larger, because the first check at 70 includes 8 COLAs and the first check at 62 none. The calculator's banner quotes the first-check figure, 114%.

The nominal break-even

The model adds up each claim's payments one year of age at a time, twelve monthly checks per year, from 62 to 95. A break-even is the first year of age by whose end the later claim's running total has caught up with the earlier one's:

• A claim at 67 catches up with a claim at 62 at age 76.
• A claim at 70 catches up with a claim at 62 at age 78.
• A claim at 70 catches up with a claim at 67 at age 80.

Once ahead, the later claim stays ahead for the rest of the horizon. By 85 the running totals are $751,510 for a claim at 62, $897,326 at 67 and $968,551 at 70.

The chart and these totals are nominal and do not depend on the discount rate: they are the same in both scenarios below.

The present-value break-even and what a discount rate means here

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, or how much less a later dollar is worth to its recipient. It is an assumption, not a forecast. Discounting counts a later claim's larger, later checks for less, and in both scenarios here each present-value break-even comes after the nominal one.

The model discounts payments that already include COLAs, so the input works as a nominal rate. The default 3.0% is only 0.6% a year above the 2.4% COLA growth. The calculator labels the input a nominal rate: the annual return the money could earn, before inflation. Setting the rate equal to the COLA gives break-evens in age-62 dollars; if the COLA matches inflation, those are real terms. At that rate the three checks are constant: $1,960, $2,800 and $3,472 a month in age-62 dollars.

Open each scenario: discount rate 3.0% · discount rate 2.4%, equal to the COLA. The two differ only in the discount rate.

Raising the rate from 2.4% to 3.0% moves two break-evens a year later and leaves 70 versus 62 at 80; the model reports whole years of age, so a break-even can stay put when the rate changes. Across the calculator's slider, a higher rate never brings a break-even earlier: at 1% the three are 77, 79 and 81, and at 7% they are 86, 87 and 90.

How the model accrues COLA

Under the regulations a PIA may be increased automatically each December to keep up with the cost of living. The model uses one fixed COLA, applied once per year of age. Every claim's check at a given age carries the same number of COLAs, counted from 62, so the COLA never changes the ratio between checks at the same age. It does change the dollar amounts and can move the nominal break-evens. The model has no forecast of future COLAs, only the rate entered.

What the model does not decide

• How long anyone lives. The formula has no survival probabilities. A break-even is a threshold, not a likelihood, and no mortality data enters the calculation.
• Spousal and survivor benefits. There is no input for a spouse; the model covers one worker's own benefit.
• Taxes. Whether benefits are taxable depends on other income plus half the benefits. All figures here are before tax.
• The earnings test. Before FRA, an annual earnings test reduces benefits for excess earnings. The model pays benefits in full from the claim date.

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. Only 62, 67 and 70 are modeled, not the months between.
• Benefits are not rounded the way SSA rounds them.
• The calculator also offers an FRA of 66, with a 25% reduction at 62 and a 32% credit at 70. This guide uses 67 throughout.

Method and sources

The model is calculateSocialSecurity in the Social Security claiming age calculator, run with the calculator's defaults and, for the second scenario, a discount rate equal to the COLA. The data file checks the model's reduction and credit against the statutory fractions.

• SSA POMS RS 00615.101: the monthly reductions for early retirement.
• 20 CFR 404.409: full retirement age by birth date, and benefits from 62.
• 20 CFR 404.313: delayed retirement credits.
• 20 CFR 404.270 and 404.271: automatic December cost-of-living increases, from the year of eligibility.
• 20 CFR 404.415: the annual earnings test.
• IRS Tax Topic 423: when benefits are taxable.

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.