. So according to opensocialsecurity.com, if I want to maximize my Social Security payout, I should start collecting Social Securityy next year, even though that's well before I turn age 70. As you may know, conventional wisdom is to wait until age 70 if you wish to maximize your payments. If I go to my SS account, I can see a chart showing that the difference between claiming next year vs claiming 2 years after that is an extra $650/mth if I wait.
They have a little chart that compares their recommended strategy to another date of your choosing, so I inserted age 70, since that's the advice we all get.
The pale green spot on the bar shows their recommended date to start SS, while the blue portion of the bar would be me at age 70. The legend below the bar shows that the pale green color indicates maximum PV (present value) while the blue is between 95-98.
Meanwhile, SSA gives me this:
I'd like to reconcile these two sources of info. Opensocialsecurity does reference the fact that they adjust "for the fact that a dollar received in the future is worth less than a dollar received today (because the sooner you receive a dollar the sooner you can invest it," and this is something I don't think SSA concverns itself with.
Of course, that's a big IF that assumes you will invest youre entire Social Security check and no doubt assumes a certain degree of growth.
August 21st, 2026 at 03:34 pm 1787326443
August 22nd, 2026 at 12:51 am 1787359884
August 22nd, 2026 at 05:57 am 1787378262
https://youtu.be/7xOURK7-UMs
August 22nd, 2026 at 09:12 pm 1787433176
One of course is your health and your family history. You have to live long enough for a strategy to ‘wait’ to pay off.
Another is how long you want to/will be able to work.
Taking SS early puts a short term cap on how much you can earn without paying a penalty. In general, waiting while you are working is the right decision.
Another is any current income stream and assets.
For people with no or small income/assets waiting may not be an option.
If you are not working and have assets both in and out of retirement accounts, it’s a complicated math exercise.
There is a tax advantage to allow money to grow inside a tax deferred retirement account. If you can move some money tax free or at 10% into a Roth, and you have savings to live off, then I think the best strategy is to spend down those assets, defer Social Security, and leave money in IRA/401k accounts. This limits tax liability and also can help with other income based benefits like ACA.
If most of your assets are in IRA/401k, you might be better to start Social Security earlier rather than tap retirement assets. Your income tax on Social Security is partially or fully excluded where income tax on traditional retirement accounts is fully taxable. You can lower this by ‘blending’ with Roth withdrawals and balancing those is a whole different decision.
I retired at 58 but then did some contract work for 4 years. I used that income, savings, and some IRA withdrawals.
I then used some of my IRA money to purchase an annuity that covers my monthly expenses because I worried about market volatility. I also began receiving a small pension at 65.
I was planning to wait until maximum age to take Social Security but I am concerned enough about its future that I decided to take it at 67. I calculated what I could earn at a safe 4% if I invested the SS money versus how much ‘more’ I would get if I lived a long long life. The difference required that I live well into my 80’s, so I started taking it.
One small benefit is that they deduct my Medicare payment so I don’t have to remember to pay that bill.
THE decision is all calculated risk based on life expectancy, market volatility, future of Social Security. You have to assess your own feelings about all of these.
There are better or worse decisions but you mostly only know that in hindsight!
Best wishes on your decision.
August 22nd, 2026 at 11:49 pm 1787442555
Your expected monthly benefit is a different question than the question being answered by Open Social Security, which is, how can I expect to maximize the amount I get from Social Security over my lifetime? They are using your age and gender and the actuarial life table at https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html to project your total amount received from Social Security over your remaining expected lifespan.
Neither of these calculations includes an adjustment for inflation, by the way.
And neither is the question that I want answered for my clients and which you might want answered for yourself, which is, what SS claiming strategy will maximize the amount left in my portfolio when I pass away? or alternatively, what SS claiming strategy will allow me to sustain my retirement spending the longest?
Note that there are loads of assumptions built into any retirement calculator which may or may not end up being true.
The SS claiming calculators are solely focused on Social Security income, but do not say ANTHING about how that will integrate with drawing from your portfolio. And strategies for drawing from your portfolio are heavily influenced by taxes and future unknown tax rates.
Social Security is at its base, INSURANCE. It is the only guaranteed income that most people have that comes with a built-in annual inflation adjustment. And yes, the current Trustee's report says that if Congress doesn't DO anything to fix Social Security in the next six years, then in 2032, benefits are projected to be cut by 22% across the board in the fourth quarter of that year. But they won't disappear entirely. And there are still lots of ways that the system can be extended, and the chances that they would actually cut the benefits of those who are receiving or are close to receiving benefits is a political hot potato, so the chances are that more of the cost will be borne by future generations.
The bottom line is that the two calculators you are comparing are answering different questions, so you are not going to be able to reconcile them, and it is still a question whether either question is the one that you most want to know the answer to, which is probably what is the optimal retirement income plan for you given your assets, asset allocation, other income sources, projected longevity, and expected expenses (among other things).
August 23rd, 2026 at 03:34 am 1787456053
August 23rd, 2026 at 12:34 pm 1787488494
But I'm still feeling that my original plan is sound (unless you can persuade me otherwise). My plan is to defer SS to age 70 (or close to it), meanwhile spending down my traditional IRA money to live on between now and age 70, thereby 1) reducing my future RMD amounts, 2) avoiding IRMAA, and 3) still benefiting from state tax-free retirement distributions of both my traditional IRAs and annuity payments due to having an AGI of less than $75,000.
From age 70 on, things will change. I'll go from the 12% tax bracket to 22% (big bump up, nearly double), and my retirement income will no longer be tax-free.
August 23rd, 2026 at 06:05 pm 1787508327
August 23rd, 2026 at 08:17 pm 1787516256
Another factor for everyone is health and longevity estimates. If you knew the day you were going to die you could draw down appropriately. But no one knows. Of course if you had and idea due to say battling cancer or chronic condition it might be a different story right?
So the questions asked and answered will be different for every individual and even couple. I would say we likely will post pone it to 70. But what if dh never makes it to 70?
Example is his uncle waited to 70. He never collected as a single guy divorced 3x and was single when he died of heart attack. Well he paid into ss as a very high wage earner who never saw a penny of it. He died right as he was turning 70.
Maybe taking it at 62 would have been wise. My mom took it at 62 which was a mistake but she was impatient. She didn't do any calculations and in fact my parents made all the wrong decisions for ss. But what is done is done and they basically didn't financially plan at all.
So everything works out sometimes I feel no matter what.