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Why I’ll Be Taking My Social Security at Age 62
Once you do the math, it makes sense for many people
Ever since I learned how retirement and Social Security work, there has been a common refrain I have been hearing from online financial advisors and influencers:
Don’t take your Social Security until you hit Full Retirement Age (FRA). You’ll get so much more money per month!
At face value, this is a true statement. Looking at the fictitious but somewhat mathematically accurate chart below, you can see that if you wait five extra years after 62 until your FRA, you would receive an extra $1,017 a month. However, this chart does not tell the full story.
Given the state of the economy today and my own one-year-plus unemployment experience, I’ll likely have few other options than to start taking my payments at 62 — and accept that I will only get 70% of the money I would get at FRA.
On the surface, this seems like a poor financial decision. It looks like I am missing out on an extra $1000 a month. But let’s look at the numbers a little closer. I wondered how long it would take me to eclipse the money I would make…
