Free tool

Social Security at 62, 67, or 70

Enter your full-retirement-age benefit and see all three in real dollars, plus the break-even ages: the point where waiting starts to come out ahead.

What this can't do: Break-even math ignores taxes, spousal benefits, and cost-of-living raises.

The figure on your Social Security statement at ssa.gov/myaccount. If you don't have it to hand, any number works to see the shape of the trade-off.

Why the spread is so wide

Claim at 62 and you take a permanent reduction. Wait past your full retirement age and you earn delayed credits of 8% a year until 70. For someone whose full retirement age is 67, that's the difference between about 70% and 124% of the same benefit: a gap of more than three-quarters, for the rest of your life, decided by when you file.

The full walkthrough, including the reasons people quite reasonably claim early, is in Social Security at 62 vs 67 vs 70: the real math.

Nothing you type here leaves your device

This tool runs entirely inside your own browser. What you enter is never sent to us, never stored, and never shared. You can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it will still work. That is deliberate: we tell people never to hand their Medicare number to a website, so this site had better not be one that asks.

Where these numbers come from

These are the 2026 amounts. CMS usually publishes the next year's figures in mid-November and SSA in October; after that, check the source links before relying on a result.

Free, official help with your own decision

This tool does arithmetic on published rules. For a decision about your own coverage, use the official sources. They're free and they don't sell anything.

  • Medicare.gov The official government site to compare plans and check coverage yourself.
  • SHIP: free local counseling Your State Health Insurance Assistance Program: free, unbiased Medicare help.