Social Security Calculator — Claiming Age & Break-Even (2026)

Sign in to (or create) a my Social Security account at ssa.gov/myaccount. SSA says the Statement there includes a bar graph of your personalized retirement benefit estimates at nine different ages, depending on when you want benefits to start, plus your earnings history. For workers aged 60 and over without an online account, SSA mails the Statement three months before the birthday.

This calculator asks for one number: the estimate at your full retirement age (the amount SSA calls your primary insurance amount). Enter the amount SSA shows for your full retirement age and let the calculator work out the other claiming ages. The estimate is SSA's, not ours: this page does not compute a benefit from an earnings history, and the Statement describes the assumptions behind its own estimates.

It depends on the year you were born. This is SSA's table, with the age-62 amount recomputed by this calculator:

Two of SSA's rules this calculator does not apply: if you were born on January 1 SSA uses the previous year, and if you were born on the 1st of any other month it figures your benefit and full retirement age as if the birthday were in the previous month. Someone born on January 1, 1960 therefore has a full retirement age of 66 and 10 months, not 67. Also, you must be 62 for the entire month to receive a benefit, so for most people the first possible month is the one after the 62nd birthday.

Claiming before full retirement age cuts the benefit by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months you are early and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond that (20 CFR § 404.410). Claiming after full retirement age adds delayed retirement credits of 2/3 of 1% a month, 8% a year, for anyone born in 1943 or later, and the credits stop at 70. Every amount is then rounded down to the whole dollar (Social Security Act § 215(g)).

Example with the calculator's default $2,400 at a full retirement age of 67 (born 1960 or later): $1,680 a month if you start at 62 (70%), $1,920 at 64 (80%), $2,400 at 67 and $2,976 at 70 (124%). The percentages do not depend on the size of the benefit.

The break-even age is when the running total of a later, larger benefit catches up with the total from claiming earlier. For a full retirement age of 67 it comes at about age 79 for 62 versus 67, about 81 for 62 versus 70, and about 83 for 67 versus 70 (whole years, counting the first age at which the later total is at least as large). Because both benefits scale with the same estimate, the break-even age is the same whether the estimate is $1,000 or $3,700.

It is a comparison of undiscounted dollars. It ignores what you could earn by investing the early checks, taxes on benefits, cost-of-living adjustments (which raise both benefits by the same percentage), a spouse's spousal or survivor benefit, and your own health and other income. That is why the calculator reports the age and does not tell you which to pick.

SSA reduces benefits through its annual earnings test when you are under full retirement age. For 2026 it deducts $1 of benefits for every $2 of wages or self-employment profit above $24,480; in the year you reach full retirement age it deducts $1 for every $3 above $65,160, counting only the months before that age. SSA's own example: $800 a month and $33,400 of earnings is $8,920 over the limit, so $4,460 is deducted. Pensions, investment income and interest do not count.

For 2027 SSA's table puts the two limits at $25,560 and $67,920; the $1-for-$2 and $1-for-$3 rules are unchanged.

From the month you reach full retirement age your earnings no longer reduce your benefit, and SSA recalculates it to give credit for the months it withheld. This calculator does not model the earnings test, so if you plan to work before full retirement age the early-claiming amounts above can be too high in the years you earn more than the limit. The earnings test calculator shows what is withheld and what comes back at full retirement age. The limits change each year; check SSA's table for the current ones.