Social Security Break-Even Calculator

Each month you start before full retirement age takes 5/9 of 1% off your PIA for the first 36 months, and 5/12 of 1% for every month beyond 36. That is about 6.7% a year for the three years just before full retirement age and 5% a year before that. With a full retirement age of 67, the full 60 months cost 30%, so 62 pays 70%.

The reduction does not go away when you reach full retirement age: in SSA's words, reduced benefits continue at a reduced rate even after it. The exception is the earnings test described below, where SSA recalculates your benefit to credit the months it withheld. Later cost-of-living increases raise the reduced benefit by the same percentage as any other benefit.

SSA rounds the reduction up to the next 10 cents. In the example in 20 CFR 404.410(a), a $980.50 benefit started 44 months early is reduced by $228.78, rounded to $228.80, leaving $751.70. It then rounds the monthly benefit down to the whole dollar, so for someone born in 1955 a $1,000 benefit at 62 ($741.67 before rounding) is paid as $741, the figure in SSA's table.

For people born in 1943 or later, each month you wait past full retirement age adds 2/3 of 1% to your benefit, 8% a year. If you were born on January 1, use the previous year: born January 1, 1943, you count as 1942, when the credit was 5/8 of 1% a month (7.5% a year), and the calculator uses that rate. The credits stop in the month you reach 70, so 70 gives the highest monthly benefit: 124% of your PIA with a full retirement age of 67, 132% with 66.

If you start between full retirement age and 70, some of your credits are not added until the January after you start. The calculator counts all of them from the first month, as SSA's own online calculator does for comparisons. Delayed credits also raise the benefit a surviving spouse gets on your record, but not the benefits of other family members.

If you wait past 65, SSA says you should still apply for Medicare within 3 months of your 65th birthday; in some circumstances Part B and Part D cost more if you sign up later.

Starting early gives you more payments; starting later gives you bigger ones. The break-even age is when the bigger payments have made up for the ones you skipped. The example uses a $2,000 benefit at a full retirement age of 67 and compares each start with starting at 62, with no COLA.

Before full retirement age, the earnings test can hold back part of your benefit. In 2026, SSA withholds $1 for every $2 you earn above $24,480 if you are under full retirement age all year. In the year you reach it, the limit is $65,160 and $1 is withheld for every $3, counting only earnings before that month. Only wages and self-employment income count, not pensions, annuities or investment income.

From the month you reach full retirement age there is no limit, and SSA recalculates your benefit to give you credit for the months it withheld. The calculator assumes the whole benefit is paid from the month you start.

It covers your own retirement benefit. It does not work out spouse's or survivor benefits, which depend on both records and on family limits. For reference, a spouse can get at most 50% of your benefit at full retirement age; starting it early cuts it by 25/36 of 1% a month for the first 36 months and 5/12 of 1% after that, so with a full retirement age of 67 a spouse's benefit at 62 is 35% lower. Delayed credits do not raise a spouse's benefit.

It also leaves out income tax on benefits and Medicare premiums, and it treats your PIA as fixed in today's dollars.

Delaying Social Security means drawing more from savings in the meantime. The retirement withdrawal calculator shows how long your savings last, and the FIRE calculator shows how much you need. If you also have a pension, the pension calculator compares a lump sum with monthly payments, and the RMD calculator shows the withdrawals your traditional IRAs and 401(k)s require from 73 or 75.