You can claim Social Security as early as 62, and waiting until 70 produces the largest possible monthly benefit. Claiming at 62 with a full retirement age of 67 permanently reduces your benefit by 30%, while delaying past full retirement age adds about 8% per year up to age 70. For most married couples the right approach is for the higher earner to delay as long as practical, because that benefit sets the survivor’s income for life. Kraus Capital is a CFP®-led fiduciary firm in Boerne, Texas that models claiming age alongside the tax plan rather than in isolation.
It is one of the few retirement decisions you cannot undo, and most people make it on the strength of a break-even chart and a hunch about how long they will live.
There is a better way to think about it, and it starts with understanding what the ages actually buy you.
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What does each claiming age actually buy you?
You can claim as early as 62. Full retirement age is 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. Benefits stop growing at 70, and there is no reason to wait past that.
Claiming at 62 with a full retirement age of 67 permanently reduces your benefit by 30%. Waiting past full retirement age adds roughly 8% per year in delayed retirement credits, which comes to 24% more at 70.
| Claiming age | Percent of your full benefit | 2026 maximum monthly benefit |
| 62 (earliest) | 70% | $2,969 |
| 65 | 86.7% | $3,467 |
| 67 (full retirement age) | 100% | $4,152 |
| 70 (maximum) | 124% | $5,181 |
Source: Social Security Administration. These are ceilings for workers with 35 years of maximum taxable earnings, not typical amounts. The estimated average benefit for retired workers in 2026 is about $2,071 per month. The spread between the columns is what matters, not the dollar figures themselves.
Full retirement age is not 67 for everyone
If you were born in 1959, your full retirement age is 66 and 10 months, not 67. That distinction matters right now, because people born in 1959 are turning 67 this year and many are making this decision without realizing their reduction and credit calculations run off a slightly different date.
| Birth year | Full retirement age |
| 1957 | 66 and 6 months |
| 1958 | 66 and 8 months |
| 1959 | 66 and 10 months |
| 1960 or later | 67 |
If you claim early and keep working, the earnings test applies. In 2026, Social Security withholds $1 of benefits for every $2 you earn above $24,480 before the year you reach full retirement age, and $1 for every $3 above $65,160 during that year. Those withheld benefits are not lost, because your benefit is recalculated upward at full retirement age, but the cash flow disappears in the meantime.
Why does break-even analysis answer the wrong question?
Because it requires you to know your date of death, and it treats Social Security as an investment when it is really insurance.
Run the numbers and you will usually find a break-even age somewhere in the early eighties. Live past it and delaying wins. Die before it and claiming early wins. That framing is tidy and mostly useless, because the variable it depends on is the one you cannot know.
Social Security is inflation-adjusted income that arrives every month, from a source that does not care what the market did, for as long as you live. That is not a bond substitute. It is longevity insurance, and the way you buy more of it is by delaying. The risk it protects against is not dying early. It is living to 95 with a portfolio that has been drawn down for thirty years.
That is also why claiming age and portfolio design are the same conversation. If delaying means drawing more heavily from investments in the bridge years, the plan has to be built to absorb that. Our guide to turning a portfolio into retirement income covers how the Shield layer handles it.
The tax consequences most Social Security calculators skip
Up to 85% of your benefit becomes taxable once provisional income crosses $44,000 for a married couple filing jointly, with the first threshold at $32,000. Those numbers were set in 1983 and 1993 and have never been indexed for inflation.
That cuts both ways, and the second direction is the one people miss. The years between retiring and claiming are usually the lowest-income years of your adult life. No wages, no Social Security, no required distributions yet. That is the cheapest window you will ever have for Roth conversions.
Claim at 62 and you fill that window with taxable benefit income, which raises the cost of every conversion dollar behind it. Delay, and you get a larger benefit for life plus a wide-open conversion runway in the meantime. It is one decision producing two separate wins, which is why we never look at claiming age in isolation from the tax plan. You should not pay more than your fair share of taxes, and the claiming decision moves that number more than most people expect.
Watch the Medicare interaction too. Income you recognize today sets your Part B and Part D premiums two years later. For 2026, the first surcharge tier for joint filers begins at $218,000 of modified adjusted gross income. Our breakdown of the 2026 IRMAA brackets has the full table.
For married couples, this is one decision, not two
A spousal benefit can be worth up to 50% of the higher earner’s full retirement age benefit. Spousal benefits do not earn delayed retirement credits, so there is nothing gained by a lower earner waiting past full retirement age for one.
The survivor benefit is where the real leverage sits. When one spouse dies, the survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits and the smaller one stops. That means the higher earner’s claiming age does not just set their own income. It sets the survivor’s income for the rest of their life, which for many couples is another ten or fifteen years.
The general shape that follows: the higher earner delays as long as is practical, and the lower earner claims earlier if the household needs the cash flow. One claim is optimized for lifetime household income, the other for the years in between.
This matters even more because of what happens to a survivor’s taxes. The year after a spouse dies, the survivor typically files as a single taxpayer. Same income, roughly half the brackets and half the standard deduction. A larger survivor benefit is one of the few things that partly offsets it, and it is a core reason claiming age belongs inside your estate and legacy planning rather than beside it.
| Want to see both claiming ages modeled side by side? Start with the Social Security Timing Worksheet |
When is claiming early the right answer?
Delaying is not automatically correct, and we say so regularly. Four situations usually point the other way.
- Health or family history that makes a long retirement unlikely.
- A bridge that costs too much. A household that would have to draw heavily from the portfolio in a down market to cover the gap. The bridge can cost more than the delay is worth.
- A lower-earning spouse where the household benefit is already anchored by the higher earner’s delay.
- A need for the income, plainly. Cash flow you can use at 64 is worth something a spreadsheet does not capture.
Texas public employees: what the Social Security Fairness Act changed
The Social Security Fairness Act, signed in January 2025, repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset.
Teachers, municipal employees, and others with public pensions who were told years ago that they would receive little or no Social Security, including spousal and survivor benefits, may now be entitled to a benefit they wrote off long ago.
Texas is one of the states where this lands hardest, because most Texas public school employees participate in the Teacher Retirement System rather than Social Security. If someone in your household spent part of a career in Texas public service, that assumption is worth re-checking before you build a plan around it.
Where claiming age fits in the Legacy Blueprint
Claiming age is an input into the Shield layer of The Legacy Blueprint, the part of the plan responsible for dependable near-term income. Social Security is the most reliable component of your retirement paycheck, and it is the only one that is inflation-adjusted and guaranteed for life.
That is why we do not decide it on its own. We decide it alongside the withdrawal order, the conversion schedule, and the survivor picture, because each one changes what the right answer is for the others. That coordination is what our Social Security optimization work is actually for.
Social Security questions from Boerne and Hill Country retirees
What is the best age to take Social Security?
There is no single best age, but age 70 produces the largest monthly benefit and the strongest protection against outliving your savings. For a married couple, the higher earner delaying as long as practical is usually the strongest move, because that benefit becomes the survivor’s income for life. Claiming early makes sense with health concerns, a genuine need for cash flow, or an expensive bridge.
How much more do I get if I wait until 70?
Delaying past full retirement age adds roughly 8% per year in delayed retirement credits, for a total of 24% more at age 70 than at a full retirement age of 67. Compared with claiming at 62, waiting until 70 produces about 77% more per month. In 2026 the published maximums are $2,969 at 62, $4,152 at full retirement age, and $5,181 at 70.
What is my full retirement age if I was born in 1959?
Your full retirement age is 66 and 10 months, not 67. Full retirement age is 66 and 6 months for people born in 1957, 66 and 8 months for 1958, and 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later. The distinction matters because your early-claiming reduction and your delayed retirement credits are both calculated from that exact date.
Can I work while collecting Social Security?
Yes, but the earnings test applies before full retirement age. In 2026, Social Security withholds $1 in benefits for every $2 you earn above $24,480, and $1 for every $3 above $65,160 during the year you reach full retirement age. Those benefits are not permanently lost, because your payment is recalculated upward once you reach full retirement age.
What happens to my spouse’s Social Security when I die?
The survivor keeps the larger of the two benefits and the smaller one stops. A couple receiving two checks becomes a household receiving one. That is why the higher earner’s claiming age is the most consequential number in the decision: it sets the survivor’s income for the rest of their life, often another ten to fifteen years.
How much is the Social Security spousal benefit?
A spousal benefit can be worth up to 50% of the higher earner’s full retirement age benefit. Spousal benefits do not earn delayed retirement credits, so a lower earner gains nothing by waiting past their own full retirement age to claim one. Claiming a spousal benefit before full retirement age permanently reduces it.
Did the Social Security Fairness Act affect Texas teachers?
Yes. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed in January 2025, repealed the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset. Texas public school employees who participate in the Teacher Retirement System, along with many municipal workers, were previously told they would receive little or no Social Security. Many are now entitled to benefits, including spousal and survivor benefits, that they had written off.
Can I change my mind after I claim Social Security?
In limited ways. You can withdraw your application within 12 months of starting benefits by filing Form SSA-521, but you must repay everything you received and you can only do this once in your lifetime. Separately, once you reach full retirement age you can voluntarily suspend benefits and earn delayed retirement credits until 70. After that, the decision is permanent.
Your next step
We will model your claiming options side by side, including the survivor outcome and what each choice does to your tax picture and your Roth conversion window between now and 73. There is no cost for the analysis.
| Get a Personalized Social Security Analysis · (210) 224-1600 · Get your free assessment |
