Why it pays to delay claiming Social Security retirement benefits

A recent New York Times article by Peter Finch explains why it pays for most people to delay claiming social security past one's "full" or "normal" retirement age.

"There’s a big financial advantage for those wait. For each year past your full retirement age that you can put off applying for Social Security, your monthly check will increase by 8 percent."

"Let’s say you aim to retire this fall at 62, having worked 40 years and ending up with a final salary of $80,000. Your benefit would come to $1,455 a month, according to the Social Security Administration’s website, ssa.gov. But if you could wait and keep working until 66, your full retirement age, you’d get $2,074 a month. At 70, it would be $2,833 — almost double the check you would get at 62."

“The terms for these deferrals began to be designed in the mid-1950s, and mortality was so different and interest rates were so different then,” said John Shoven, a Stanford University economics professor and an authority on Social Security. “What was a fair deal when it was introduced is really an outrageously good deal now.”

Full article available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/business/social-security-retirement.html