Full Retirement Age and Claiming: How Your Age Changes Your Benefit
When you claim Social Security relative to your full retirement age permanently changes your monthly benefit. Here is how early and delayed claiming work.
Your full retirement age (FRA) is the age at which you qualify for 100% of your primary insurance amount — the benefit calculated from your lifetime earnings. When you actually claim, relative to that age, changes your monthly check permanently.
Find your full retirement age
- Born 1960 or later: FRA is 67.
- Born 1955–1959: FRA rises from 66 and 2 months to 66 and 10 months, in two-month steps.
- Born 1943–1954: FRA is 66.
Claiming early reduces your benefit
You can claim as early as 62, but your benefit is reduced for each month before your FRA. For someone with an FRA of 67, claiming at 62 results in roughly a 30% permanent reduction.
Delaying increases it
If you wait past your FRA, you earn delayed retirement credits of about 8% per year, up to age 70. For an FRA of 67, waiting until 70 raises your benefit to about 124% of your full amount. There is no advantage to delaying past 70.
How the benefit itself is figured
The monthly benefit comes from the PIA formula applied to your average indexed monthly earnings, using the 2026 "bend points" of $1,286 and $7,749. Spousal and survivor benefits are derived from the worker's amount and have their own claiming rules.
To estimate your own number, try our benefits estimator and confirm the official figure in your my Social Security account.
This article is for general education and is not financial advice.
Reference: SocialSecurityNews