How to compare Social Security claiming ages
The Social Security claiming decision is one number — the age between 62 and 70 when checks start — but it sets a permanent multiplier on the largest inflation-adjusted annuity most households will ever own. Claim at 62 with a full retirement age of 67 and you lock in 70% of your full benefit for life; wait until 70 and you lock in 124%. This article walks through comparing those ages in Deorbit Plan, where the answer can reflect your taxes, portfolio, and spouse rather than a rule of thumb.
The multiplier, exactly
For everyone born in 1960 or later, full retirement age (FRA) is 67. Claiming early reduces the benefit by 5/9 of 1% per month for the first 36 months before FRA and 5/12 of 1% per month beyond that — 30% total at 62. Claiming late earns delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% per month (8% per year) through age 70. The whole-age factors are below; Deorbit Plan applies them to the FRA benefit you enter.
Why there is no universal answer
Delaying is longevity insurance: it wins if you (or, via survivor benefits, your spouse) live long, and loses if you don’t. But the break-even framing misses the system effects a simulator can see. Delaying means spending down the portfolio harder in your 60s — which hurts in bad market sequences — while also creating low-income gap years that are ideal for Roth conversions. Benefits are also taxed on a formula of their own: once “provisional income” passes $32,000/$44,000 on a joint return ($25,000/$34,000 single — thresholds fixed in statute, never inflation-adjusted), up to 50% and then 85% of benefits become taxable, so claim timing changes lifetime tax, not just lifetime benefits.
Step 1 — enter each person’s benefit
In the Household panel, each person has “Social Security at FRA ($/month)” — copy this from your ssa.gov statement — and a “Claiming age” field (62–70). If you haven’t set the benefit, the “Re-estimate Social Security from income” button fills in an estimate from the person’s income, but the statement number is much better. Someone already receiving benefits checks “Already receiving Social Security” and enters the current monthly amount instead.
Step 2 — sweep the claim ages in the Lab
Open the Strategy Lab and run Tool 2 — Strategy sweep & frontier. It simulates your profile under every combination of Roth-conversion strategy and claim-age preset (62, 67, 70 — for couples, both spouses together by default; the “Advanced: independent claim ages per spouse” toggle expands the grid, up to 45 runs). Every point uses the same market draws (a common seed), so differences between points are strategy, not luck.
Step 3 — read the frontier
The result is a scatter of success rate against an objective you choose — median lifetime tax, estate to heirs, or lifetime spending — with your current plan starred and dominated points (beaten on both axes) muted. Claiming ages usually separate vertically: later claiming often buys success-rate at some cost to median estate, because more of the household’s floor is insured income. Click any point for the detail card: success, median lifetime tax, estate, lifetime spending, and its closest approach to an ACA/IRMAA cliff.
Step 4 — A/B the finalist
From the detail card, Load as Scenario B drops the candidate next to your current plan in the compare view — same seed, same draws — where you read the deltas: Δ success, Δ lifetime tax, Δ estate. If it holds up, Apply to my plan shows a confirm dialog listing exactly the fields it changes (each person’s claim age, and the conversion strategy if the point included one) before re-running at full fidelity. The Lab’s standing caveat applies: winners can flip with market assumptions, so re-run the finalists under the historical bootstrap model before trusting the ranking.
Try it in Deorbit Plan
Set each person’s Social Security at FRA and Claiming age in the Household panel, then run the Strategy Lab sweep (with independent claim ages for couples), pick an objective for the frontier, and use Load as Scenario B with a fixed RNG seed to compare your two best claiming ages head-to-head.
Educational content only — not financial, tax, or investment advice.
See how this plays out with your own numbers. Try it in the simulator →