When People Who Have Stopped Working Should Take Social Security Retirement

A new generation of retirees will receive full Social Security retirement benefits at age 66. Those who have left the workforce have the choice of collecting benefits early. The paper considers the range of choices faced by decision-makers and offers an alternative approach to the financial planning question of when to begin taking Social Security benefits, identifying the incremental increases from waiting. With consideration of various dis-count rates, life expectancy, and the complexity of the Social Security rules, for many, but not all, waiting until age 66 will yield a larger present value of the stream of expected future benefits.