I’m Retired – and Regret Waiting Until 70 to Claim Social Security

Let’s be real. For years, financial advisors hammered the same advice: wait until 70 to claim Social Security. That’s the “smart” move, they said. After you hit full retirement age, your benefit increases by 8 percent each year you wait to claim, and waiting until age 70 means your benefit could be more than 70 percent higher than if you claimed at age 62. The math seems bulletproof on paper. Yet here I sit, a 72-year-old retiree, looking back with genuine regret at that supposedly brilliant decision.

The Perfect Storm of Missed Opportunities

Here’s what nobody tells you about waiting until 70: those years between 62 and 70 might be your healthiest, most active retirement years. I watched my travel bucket list gather dust while my friends in their early sixties explored Europe and took those cross-country road trips. Now I have the bigger check, sure, which sounds great in theory. The reality stings differently when your knees protest every morning and that Alaskan cruise sounds exhausting rather than exciting.

One retiree named Robert shared his story recently, explaining how he and his wife postponed travel and bucket-list experiences in their sixties. They believed they’d have more money and time later. Instead, health issues crept in, energy waned, and those dreams lost their shine. It’s hard to say for sure, but waiting might have cost more than just dollars.

Nine in 10 working Americans say they plan to ignore one of the most common pieces of financial advice about Social Security: waiting until age 70 to claim benefits, and delaying Social Security until age 70 results in a roughly 24 percent higher monthly payment than if you claimed benefits at age 67. Those Americans might be onto something that the spreadsheets miss.

The Breakeven Age Nobody Likes to Discuss

Starting at 62, your benefits would come to $120,960 over the next eight years, and starting at 70, you’d get approximately $970 more a month, or about $11,640 more a year. It would take about 10.4 years to break even, so you’d be 80 and change when claiming your maximum monthly benefit begins to pay off in terms of total dollars. That’s the uncomfortable truth hiding in plain sight.

I need to live well into my eighties just to break even on my decision. According to the SSA, the average life expectancy for a 65-year-old is around 84 years for males and 87 for females. Looking at those numbers now feels different than it did at 69. Every year counts more when you’re racing against your own mortality to justify a financial decision.

The Discount Rate Dilemma

An article published in the Journal of Financial Planning written by Yale University and Pomona College economics professors says that age 70 is not the most financially rewarding age to initiate benefits unless an individual has a low discount rate and is confident they will live several years past their life expectancy. That academic language translates to something simpler: future dollars aren’t worth as much as today’s dollars.

In an article published in The Wall Street Journal, Derek Tharp argues that this simple spreadsheet calculation assumes that future dollars are worth almost the same as today’s dollars. Financial advisors building their delay-claiming models often assume you’re investing in ultra-safe assets earning barely anything. Most retirees hold portfolios with stocks and bonds, historically earning closer to five percent returns.

If I’d claimed at 62 and invested those eight years of benefits, compound growth could have significantly boosted my nest egg. Instead, I spent down savings to cover expenses while waiting for that allegedly superior benefit.

Drawing Down Retirement Accounts Too Early

Retirees who delay claiming Social Security may also need to draw down their savings and investments to cover living expenses, harming their nest egg and future returns. This was my reality. While waiting for age 70, I depleted my IRA faster than planned. Those withdrawals triggered taxes and reduced the portfolio’s long-term earning potential.

The financial planners showed me charts about maximizing Social Security. They conveniently forgot to model the damage to my investment accounts during those waiting years. It feels like winning the battle but losing the war when your monthly Social Security check is bigger, yet your overall wealth took a beating.

The Health Factor Financial Models Ignore

Financial projections assume average health and longevity. Life doesn’t work that way. I developed arthritis at 68, then high blood pressure at 71. My energy isn’t what it was at 62. Those first retirement years, the ones I sacrificed waiting for maximum benefits, were my window for active adventures.

Another risk for benefit delayers is mortality, according to experts, and life expectancy is 78.4 years according to the Center for Disease Control, but if you die early, you could be leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on that table that otherwise could have been spent or given to loved ones or causes one cares about. That possibility haunts me now more than it did in my confident sixties.

The Survivor Benefit Consideration for Couples

Married folks face different math. Widows and widowers are entitled to 100 percent of their late spouse’s Social Security benefit if they claim survivor benefits at their own full retirement age. The higher earner delaying to 70 can protect the surviving spouse with a larger benefit.

That strategy makes sense for some couples, especially if the surviving spouse is likely to live a long life. For single retirees or couples where both have similar earnings histories, though, that survivor benefit advantage disappears. Context matters more than blanket advice.

What Research Actually Shows About Optimal Claims

In 2019, researchers at United Income published a report that examined the claims of 20,000 retired workers using data from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study designed to see which claiming ages were optimal, and in this context, an optimal claim is one that would have maximized the lifetime Social Security income collected by a retired worker, and unsurprisingly, United Income’s analysis found that very few, just 4 percent of the 20,000 claimants studied, retired-worker beneficiaries had made an optimal claim.

United Income’s analysis found that only a low single-digit percentage of retired-worker beneficiaries waited until age 70 to initially collect their payout, but based on the extrapolated analysis by researchers, 57 percent of the 20,000 claims would have been optimal at 70. That sounds convincing until you remember these are statistical models, not individual lives.

The Social Security Solvency Elephant in the Room

Social Security is facing a financial crunch, with an aging U.S. population resulting in its payments now outpacing contributions from workers, and without changes to the program, that will result in its trust funds becoming insolvent by 2034 according to the most recent calculation from the Social Security Board of Trustees. Some retirees claim early specifically because they worry the money won’t be there later.

The latest Social Security Board of Trustees Report estimates that retired workers could see their payouts reduced by 21 percent after 2033. I don’t think the program will disappear entirely, but waiting for maximum benefits while the system faces potential cuts feels riskier than conventional wisdom admits.

The Cost-of-Living Adjustment Reality

According to the SSA, the 2.8 percent increase in 2026 translates to an additional $56 for the average retiree, raising the average monthly check to $2,071 from $2,015 in 2025. Married couples see an average increase of $88, bringing their monthly benefit to $3,208 from $3,120 in 2025. These COLA adjustments apply regardless of when benefits are claimed, so both early and late claimers see the percentage increase.

The Social Security Administration automatically deducts the Part B premium cost from the Social Security benefits of most Medicare recipients, and that would effectively reduce the increase to the average Social Security check in 2026 from $56 to $38.10 after subtracting the Part B increase of $17.90, and in that scenario the Part B increase will consume almost 32 percent of the monthly increase. My larger benefit at 70 gets chewed up by rising Medicare costs faster than I anticipated.

What I’d Do Differently Knowing What I Know Now

If I could rewind to age 62, I’d claim Social Security and invest a portion of each check. I’d take that European trip with my wife when our bodies cooperated. I’d spend less time in spreadsheets and more time living. The extra monthly dollars at 70 don’t compensate for the experiences and flexibility I surrendered.

Honestly, the decision isn’t purely financial. It’s about quality of life, health trajectories, and personal circumstances that no calculator can capture. In December 2022, 64 percent of all retired workers who were receiving Social Security benefits had chosen to begin receiving benefits before their full retirement age, let alone age 70. Maybe most Americans understand something the experts miss.

Claiming Social Security is deeply personal. Your health, savings, spouse’s situation, and what you value in retirement all matter more than conventional wisdom. I waited until 70 because everyone said it was optimal. Now I wonder who that decision was actually optimal for. What would you do in my shoes? The clock’s ticking either way.