The Social Security Decision You Might Really Regret if You're Married

The tricky thing about claiming Social Security is that you get a wide range of ages to choose from. You can claim your monthly benefit starting at age 62, but in doing so, you'll reduce it in the process. You can wait until full retirement age (FRA) to file, which, depending on your year of birth, is either 66, 67, or 66 and a certain number of months, to avoid a reduction in benefits. Or, you can delay benefits past FRA and boost them by 8% a year up until age 70. In fact, you can technically hold off on claiming benefits past 70, but since there's no financial incentive to do so, 70 is generally considered the latest age to file.

Now the interesting thing about Social Security is that it's designed to pay you the same lifetime total regardless of your filing age, provided you live an average lifespan. How can that be? Well, filing before FRA reduces each monthly payment you get, but you collect benefits for a longer period of time. Waiting until FRA means no reduction in monthly benefits, but you don't start collecting them early. And delaying benefits means getting them later in life, but also getting more money each month. As such, you could, conceivably, break even on lifetime Social Security income regardless of when you first file if your life expectancy is average.

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Source Fool.com