Social Security Calculator: How Much at 62, 67 or 70?

Social Security figures your retirement benefit from your 35 highest-earning years, adjusted for wage growth, and then adjusts it for the age you start. Your full benefit, called your primary insurance amount, is paid at your full retirement age, 67 if you were born in 1960 or later. Starting at 62 cuts it to 70% of that amount for life; waiting to 70 raises it to 124%. In August 2026, the average retired worker received $2,087.52 a month.

The calculator below estimates your full benefit from your earnings, or takes the figure from your Social Security Statement, and shows what you’d get at each age from 62 to 70, with lifetime totals and break-even ages.

How Social Security figures your benefit

Your benefit comes from three steps, set out in Social Security’s benefit formula:

1. Index your earnings. Each year’s earnings, up to the taxable maximum for that year, are adjusted for the growth in average wages through the year you turn 60. Earnings after 60 count at face value.
2. Average your top 35 years. Social Security adds your 35 highest indexed years and divides by 420 months. That result is your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME). If you worked fewer than 35 years, the missing years count as zeros.
3. Apply the formula. Your primary insurance amount is 90% of the first part of your AIME, 32% of the middle part and 15% of anything above. For people who turn 62 in 2026, the breaks, called bend points, are $1,286 and $7,749; for 2027 they are $1,340 and $8,077.

For an AIME of $5,000 under the 2026 formula, that is 90% of $1,286 ($1,157.40) plus 32% of $3,714 ($1,188.48), for a full benefit of $2,345.80. Someone who earned about $60,000 a year in today’s dollars for 35 years lands near that figure.

The formula replaces a much larger share of lower earnings. That’s why doubling your career earnings doesn’t double your benefit, and why a few extra years at high pay add less once your average passes the second bend point.

Your benefit at each claiming age

You can start as early as 62 or as late as 70. Before full retirement age, your benefit is reduced by 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 36 months early and 5/12 of 1% for each month beyond that. After full retirement age, delayed retirement credits add 2/3 of 1% for each month you wait, 8% a year, until 70. For anyone whose full retirement age is 67:

Your full retirement age depends on your birth year: 66 and 2 months if born in 1955, rising by two months a year to 67 for 1960 and later. Social Security’s age reduction chart shows the reduction at 62 for each birth year, and the full retirement age calculator gives your exact date. Waiting past 70 adds nothing.

Why your estimate may differ from your Social Security Statement

The estimates in your my Social Security account use your actual earnings record, so they’re the best starting point. But they assume you keep earning about what you earn now every year until you start benefits. If you plan to stop working at 55 or 60, your real benefit can be lower than the Statement shows, because each year without earnings can add a zero to your 35-year average, as Social Security explains on its page about stopping work.

The reverse also happens. Working longer can raise your benefit even after 35 years, because a high-earning year replaces a low one in the average. To test an early-retirement plan in the calculator, enter the number of years you’ll actually have worked.

Other differences come from rounding and timing. Social Security uses the formula for the year you turn 62, and cost-of-living increases are added from that year on, so future benefits in actual dollars will be higher than the today’s-dollar figures shown here.

Break-even: when waiting pays off

Starting later means fewer checks but larger ones. With the 2026 formula and a full retirement age of 67, waiting from 62 to 67 comes out ahead in total benefits if you live past about 78 and 9 months, and waiting from 67 to 70 comes out ahead past about 82 and 6 months. Those ages ignore cost-of-living increases, which raise every option by the same percentage, and investment returns on money you’d receive earlier.

Lifetime totals aren’t the only factor in when to start retirement benefits:

• Marriage: if you’re the higher earner, your benefit becomes your spouse’s survivor benefit if you die first, so delaying protects them too. A lower-earning spouse may also qualify for a spousal benefit.
• Work: if you claim before full retirement age and keep working, the earnings test holds back $1 for every $2 you earn above $24,480 in 2026 ($25,560 in 2027). The money isn’t lost; your benefit is recalculated at full retirement age.
• Health and savings: starting early can make sense if you need the income now or don’t expect a long retirement.

The largest possible benefits

Only people who earned at or above the taxable maximum ($184,500 in 2026, $192,300 in 2027) for at least 35 years get the maximum:

For someone retiring at full retirement age, Social Security’s maximum rises from $4,152 in 2026 to $4,188 in 2027.

What comes out of the check

• Medicare: the Part B premium, $202.90 a month in 2026, is usually deducted once you’re enrolled.
• Taxes: up to 85% of your benefit can be taxable, depending on your other income.
• Cost-of-living increases: benefits rise each January; the 2027 COLA is 3.6%, and the COLA calculator applies it.
• Government pensions: the Windfall Elimination Provision, which used to reduce benefits for people with a pension from work not covered by Social Security, ended under the Social Security Fairness Act signed January 5, 2025.

Disability benefits use the same formula with no age reduction; the estimate for how much SSDI pays works the same way.