CRS Updates Info on Social Security Retirement Benefit Claiming Age

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) has updated its report on the age for claiming Social Security retirement benefits. The report provides a discussion of some current trends concerning and affecting that threshold.

The full retirement age (FRA)—the age at which workers can first claim full Social Security retirement benefits—is an important gauge for a variety of reasons, the CRS says, including:

• A worker’s monthly benefit amount is affected by the age at which he or she claims benefits relative to the FRA.
• Benefit adjustments, which are intended to provide the worker with roughly the same total lifetime benefits regardless of when he or she claims benefits based on average life expectancy, are made based on the number of months before or after the FRA the worker claims benefits.
• Claiming benefits before the FRA results in a permanent reduction in monthly benefits (to take into account the longer expected period of benefit receipt).
• Claiming benefits after the FRA results in a permanent increase in monthly benefits (to take into account the shorter expected period of benefit receipt).

Early Benefits Claims

Workers and spouses can claim reduced retirement benefits as early as age 62 (the early eligibility age); other dependents, such as widow(er)s, can claim benefits at earlier ages. For workers with an FRA of 66, for example, claiming benefits at age 62 results in a 25% reduction in monthly benefits. For workers with an FRA of 67, claiming benefits at age 62 results in a 30% benefit reduction.

Delayed Benefits Claims

Workers who delay claiming benefits until after the FRA receive a delayed retirement credit (DRC), which applies up to the age of 70. Any further delay in claiming benefits past age 70 does not result in a higher benefit. Under current law, the amount of the credit varies based on the worker’s year of birth. The credit for workers born in 1943 or later is 8% per year.

The CRS says that studies show that the increase in the DRC increased the incentive to take up benefits after the FRA, with the result being that the claiming age distribution of Social Security benefits has shifted toward later ages. Comparing workers who were born in 1925 with those born in 1943 or later, the DRC increased from 3.5% per year to 8%. The proportion of retired workers who claimed benefits after attaining the FRA increased from about 4% in 2010 (when people born in 1943 attained age 67) to 16% in 2020.

FRA Trends

The FRA was age 65 when Social Security began in 1935. Roughly half a century later in 1983, a Social Security reform measure was enacted that included a provision gradually increasing the FRA from age 65 to 67 over a 22-year period (for those reaching age 62 between 2000 and 2022). 
Currently, the FRA is 67 for workers who become eligible for retirement benefits in 2022 (i.e., workers born in 1960).

Additional Factors 

Policy changes are not the only factors that affect when an employee claims Social Security benefits, the report acknowledges. For example, the CRS says, some provisions in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 (P.L. 114- 74) changed certain Social Security benefits filing rules and could affect the claiming behavior of some retired workers at the FRA and older. 

The CRS also cites studies that found that: 

• receiving a Social Security Statement decreases the likelihood of benefit claiming at earlier ages and increases the likelihood of claiming at later ages such as 65; 
• couples like to retire together, and because husbands tend to be older than their wives on average, the increased labor force participation of women since the 1960s may lead to later retirement of men; and 
• peers at the workplace or those whose age is closest to that of an individual tend to have an impact on that individual’s retirement decisions.