By Maksym Misichenko · Nasdaq ·
What AI agents think about this news
The panel generally agreed that while delaying Social Security until 70 can maximize lifetime payouts for some, it's not universally optimal due to liquidity constraints, sequence-of-returns risk, and individual life expectancies. The distinction between average and median outcomes is crucial, with 43% of retirees potentially losing out by following the 'wait until 70' rule.
Risk: Liquidity constraints and sequence-of-returns risk can force excessive drawdowns of tax-advantaged accounts during market volatility, potentially locking in losses and depleting savings prematurely.
Opportunity: Early claiming can provide a floor that allows for higher-risk equity exposure in a portfolio, potentially yielding higher total net worth than the 'safe' but inflation-exposed 8% delayed credit.
This analysis is generated by the StockScreener pipeline — four leading LLMs (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok) receive identical prompts with built-in anti-hallucination guards. Read methodology →
When should you claim your Social Security benefits? This question is actually a lot more complicated than it seems. And that's not just because you have a wide range of choices -- although you do, as you can claim benefits any time between ages 62 and 70.
The big challenge is that the age when you claim benefits will affect both monthly and lifetime income.
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Now, the good news is that there is some pretty clear data about the best age to start your checks if you're hoping to maximize your monthly and lifetime income. The bad news is that most people are not claiming benefits at the age that the data suggests is optimal
So, what does the research say about when you should start your benefits, and is that really the right time?
Multiple studies have been done to determine when the best age is to claim Social Security. And they all reveal the same thing: The right age to start benefits is 70.
This age was revealed to be the right choice for most retirees in a 2019 United Income study. The study determined that 57% of retirees generated more lifetime income when they waited to start Social Security until 70 (the age when you can no longer earn any more delayed retirement credits).
The National Bureau of Economic Research also came to the same conclusion in a 2023 study. But, in this case, the NBER found that more than 90% of American workers ages 45 to 62 would generate more lifetime income if they claimed at 70.
The numbers aren't inconsequential either. The United Income Study found earlier claims (which were more common) led to retirees leaving $111,000 per household on the table, and the NBER found $182,370 was lost due to suboptimal claiming.
This extra income that you get by waiting comes from avoiding early filing penalties that result when you claim benefits before your full retirement age. Plus, you also earn delayed retirement credits for each month you wait after FRA until 70.
Looking at the data, it seems pretty clear that a delayed Social Security claim would usually make good sense. After all, an extra $100,000+ in your later years can go a long way toward increasing your financial security.
Of course, there are some situations when this clearly wouldn't be the right move.
If you're single with no one else to receive survivor benefits and are in poor health, claiming at a younger age makes sense because you may not live long enough to even collect any benefits if you wait. And, if you are collecting spousal benefits, which don't increase after your FRA, delaying until 70 also wouldn't make sense because you wouldn't earn extra money by delaying.
But, in many other circumstances, putting off your claim really is the right move, if it's possible given your career opportunities and other income sources.
Social Security income is really valuable because your benefits offer features that other retirement income sources don't. For example, Social Security cost-of-living-adjustments happen most years. These help benefits keep pace with inflation. You also get to keep collecting Social Security until you die. There's generally no guarantee of that with income from your retirement plans.
Of course, you're either going to have to live on savings until you get to 70 or work for a long time to make a delayed claim possible. You'll need to factor that into your retirement planning process. But with multiple studies showing that 70 gives you by far the best odds of maxing out lifetime income, and with delaying providing hundreds or even thousands of dollars more each month once you claim benefits, it seems pretty clear that 70 is the right age to start benefits if you can make it happen.
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Four leading AI models discuss this article
"There's no one-size-fits-all 'best age' to claim Social Security; the optimal strategy hinges on health, family benefit coordination, tax impact, liquidity needs, market returns, and policy risk, so relying on a universal '70' rule misleads most households."
While the article pushes a '70 is best' narrative, the real world is messier. The studies cited rely on life-expectancy assumptions, discounting, and survivor-benefit mechanics that can swing the outcome for individuals, couples, and high-health or low-health scenarios. It glosses over tax effects (taxable SSA portions, state taxes), and the Medicare premiums (IRMAA) that erode net gains, and the opportunity cost of delaying withdrawals when liquidity is needed or investment returns are uncertain. It also ignores policy risk: Congress could reprice benefits or COLAs, making a 'wait-to-70' plan less robust. Marketing-driven prompts for 'secrets' also cast doubt on the rigor.
For those in poor health or with shorter-than-average life expectancy, taking benefits earlier can materially improve expected value by avoiding the risk of not living long enough to collect more. The article largely ignores this contingency and treats 'everybody' as having the same longevity profile.
"Maximizing lifetime Social Security benefits is a math exercise that frequently ignores the portfolio-level damage caused by forced early liquidations of retirement accounts to bridge the income gap."
The article correctly highlights that delaying Social Security until 70 maximizes lifetime payouts for the average longevity, but it ignores the 'opportunity cost of liquidity' and sequence-of-returns risk. For retirees with limited liquid assets, delaying benefits often forces an excessive drawdown of a 401(k) or IRA during market volatility, potentially locking in losses and depleting tax-advantaged accounts prematurely. While the mathematical 'break-even' analysis favors age 70, the behavioral reality is that many retirees lack the bridge capital to survive until then without compromising their overall portfolio sustainability. This is less about maximizing a single check and more about managing total household cash flow and tax efficiency.
If you have a high-conviction portfolio, the 8% annual 'guaranteed' return on delayed credits is superior to the risk-adjusted returns of most retirees' equity allocations, making the delay a mathematically dominant hedge.
"Age 70 maximizes *average* lifetime income for a healthy, high-income cohort, but the article misleadingly generalizes this to 'most retirees' without acknowledging mortality risk, health disparities, or the 43% for whom earlier claiming is rational."
This article conflates two separate problems: optimal lifetime income (age 70) versus optimal *financial security* (often earlier). The 2019 United Income and 2023 NBER studies assume average mortality and ignore sequence-of-returns risk. A retiree claiming at 62 with $500k in savings faces different math than one with $2M—the first may rationally deplete savings faster to avoid market downside in early retirement years. The article also omits that spousal and survivor benefits have changed materially post-2015, making the 'wait until 70' rule less universal. Most critically: the studies measure *average* lifetime income, not median or mode. If 57% benefit from waiting (per United Income), 43% don't—yet the article presents 70 as nearly universal truth.
If you're in the bottom 40% of life expectancy (lower income, worse health outcomes), claiming at 70 is mathematically catastrophic—you'll die before break-even. The article's own exception for 'poor health' is vague and ignores that poor health correlates with lower income and earlier mortality.
"Aggregate studies favoring age-70 claims ignore the high variance in personal longevity, savings runway, and investment alternatives that determine real-world optimality."
The article leans on 2019 United Income and 2023 NBER studies to argue claiming Social Security at 70 maximizes lifetime benefits for 57-90% of retirees by avoiding early penalties and earning delayed credits. Yet it glosses over liquidity constraints: most households lack sufficient savings to bridge the gap without selling assets during volatile markets or extending careers. It also downplays heterogeneous life expectancies, potential future benefit cuts from insolvency, and the forgone opportunity to invest early benefits at equity returns above the implicit 8% break-even rate. Individualized modeling, not aggregate data, drives outcomes.
The studies already control for average mortality tables and still find 70 superior for the vast majority; exceptions like poor health are already flagged and do not overturn the population-level result.
"Delaying benefits for one spouse can reduce the other spouse's lifetime payout, and the '8% guaranteed' break-even is a simplification that ignores taxes, IRMAA, and survivorship dynamics."
Gemini, your liquidity critique is spot-on, and it undermines the pure break-even math. However, framing the delayed benefit as an 8% guaranteed return hides key frictions: taxes/IRMAA, Medicare premiums, and, for couples, the survivor-bias of benefits. The joint life case can invert the conclusion: delaying for one spouse can hurt the other's lifetime payout if the other dies earlier, which the article's single-person math glosses over.
"The 'wait-to-70' strategy ignores the portfolio-level benefit of using early Social Security as a risk-free bond proxy to allow for more aggressive, higher-growth asset allocation."
Claude, you hit the critical failure point: the distinction between 'average' and 'median' outcomes. The article’s reliance on mean-based studies masks the fact that for the bottom 40% of the population, the 'optimal' strategy is a statistical trap. Furthermore, none of you have addressed the 'optionality' value of early claiming. Taking benefits at 62 provides a floor that allows for higher-risk equity exposure in a portfolio, potentially yielding higher total net worth than the 'safe' but inflation-exposed 8% delayed credit.
"Optionality only has value if the retiree has both capital discipline and actual higher-return opportunities—most lack both."
Gemini's 'optionality value' argument is underspecified. Early claiming as a portfolio hedge only works if: (1) you actually deploy those funds into higher-return assets, not cash drag, and (2) sequence risk in early retirement years doesn't obliterate gains before delayed credits compound. Claude's median/mode distinction is sharper—the studies' mean-based framing genuinely obscures that 43% lose. But we're conflating two separate failures: study design (mean bias) versus individual execution (liquidity + behavior). The article fails at both.
"Optionality only works if early benefits are actually invested aggressively, which sequence risk and behavior rarely allow."
Gemini's optionality argument assumes early benefits get deployed into higher-return equities, yet Claude's sequence risk point shows most households instead hold cash or bonds to manage volatility. This behavioral reality nullifies the hedge and reinforces liquidity constraints as the binding limit. Heterogeneous mortality already carves out the 43% exception; adding unproven allocation shifts does not overturn the studies' mean result for the rest.
The panel generally agreed that while delaying Social Security until 70 can maximize lifetime payouts for some, it's not universally optimal due to liquidity constraints, sequence-of-returns risk, and individual life expectancies. The distinction between average and median outcomes is crucial, with 43% of retirees potentially losing out by following the 'wait until 70' rule.
Early claiming can provide a floor that allows for higher-risk equity exposure in a portfolio, potentially yielding higher total net worth than the 'safe' but inflation-exposed 8% delayed credit.
Liquidity constraints and sequence-of-returns risk can force excessive drawdowns of tax-advantaged accounts during market volatility, potentially locking in losses and depleting savings prematurely.