7 Reasons to Take Social Security at 70

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to claim Social Security before age 70. Someone in poor health may reasonably want the money earlier, while another retiree may need the income to avoid draining investments during a market downturn. But for healthy retirees with sufficient assets to support themselves during their 60s, delaying Social Security can accomplish something difficult to reproduce anywhere else in a retirement plan: It converts part of today’s financial resources into a larger stream of government-backed, inflation-adjusted income that can continue for the rest of life.

For people born in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67. Waiting until 70 increases the retirement benefit to 124% of the full-retirement-age amount, and no additional delayed-retirement credits accrue after 70. That does not make age 70 automatically correct, because delaying requires giving up several years of checks. It does mean the decision deserves more consideration than a simple break-even calculation, particularly for married couples, long-lived retirees and households that want more guaranteed income later in life.

1. You Can Lock In a Significantly Larger Monthly Benefit

For workers born in 1943 or later, delayed-retirement credits increase benefits by 8% per year after full retirement age until age 70. For someone born in 1960 or later, that means waiting from 67 until 70 raises the benefit by 24%. Unlike an assumed investment return, this increase does not depend on whether the stock market performs well during those three years.

Consider someone entitled to $2,000 a month at full retirement age. Delaying to 70 would increase that amount to about $2,480 before considering future cost-of-living adjustments. That is an additional $5,760 of annual Social Security income, and the larger base continues for as long as the beneficiary lives. Someone entitled to $3,500 at full retirement age would see the comparable amount rise to about $4,340, creating an even larger lifetime income floor.

It is important to describe the 8% correctly. The benefit does not earn an 8% investment return in an account, and someone who waits is giving up checks that could have been collected earlier. Delaying is better understood as purchasing a larger lifetime income stream by spending other resources during the intervening years. Whether that exchange is attractive depends heavily on longevity, available savings and the value the retiree places on guaranteed future income.

2. Longevity Makes the Larger Check More Valuable

One of the strongest reasons to delay Social Security is also one of retirement’s biggest uncertainties: Nobody knows how long retirement will last. Social Security’s latest actuarial life table shows that a 65-year-old man has an average remaining life expectancy of about 18.1 years, while a 65-year-old woman averages about 20.7 additional years. The same table indicates that roughly 24% of men who reach 65 and about 35% of women who reach 65 survive to age 90 under the mortality assumptions used in the table.

Those probabilities become even more important for couples because the household must consider how long either spouse may live. A married couple in reasonably good health can face a significant possibility that one person will spend decades in retirement, which makes a larger guaranteed benefit increasingly valuable. A portfolio can decline, a pension may lack inflation protection and unexpected expenses can consume savings, while Social Security continues as long as the beneficiary remains eligible.

This is why delaying is often described as a form of longevity insurance. Someone who dies relatively young may have collected more total dollars by claiming earlier, while someone who reaches 90, 95 or beyond can receive the larger delayed benefit for many years. The purpose is not necessarily to maximize the expected number of dollars collected; it is to protect against the financial consequences of the outcome that is hardest to fund—a very long life.

3. The Higher Earner Can Protect the Surviving Spouse

For married couples, Social Security claiming should rarely be evaluated as two unrelated individual decisions. When one spouse dies, the household generally loses one Social Security payment, and the survivor may become eligible for a survivor benefit based on the deceased worker’s record. Social Security’s regulations specifically provide that delayed-retirement credits earned by the deceased worker are included when calculating the surviving spouse’s benefit.

That makes delaying particularly valuable for the higher earner. Suppose one spouse is entitled to $2,000 a month at full retirement age while the other is entitled to $3,500. If the higher earner delays until 70, the $3,500 benefit could rise to approximately $4,340 before future COLAs. If that spouse dies first, the larger benefit can materially strengthen the income available to the survivor, subject to the survivor’s claiming age and other Social Security rules.

The distinction between spousal and survivor benefits is important. A living spouse’s maximum spousal benefit is generally based on the worker’s full-retirement-age amount and does not receive the worker’s delayed-retirement credits, while a survivor benefit can reflect those credits. That is why a couple may reasonably allow the lower earner to claim earlier while delaying the higher earner’s benefit to 70, creating income today while maximizing protection for whichever spouse lives longest.

4. A Larger Social Security Check Can Reduce Portfolio Risk

Retirement portfolios face risks that Social Security does not. Stocks can decline sharply, bonds can lose value when interest rates rise and withdrawals during a bad sequence of market returns can permanently weaken a portfolio. A larger Social Security benefit reduces the amount the household must obtain from those volatile assets every year.

Imagine a retiree who needs $7,000 a month to support the household. If Social Security provides $2,500, investments must supply the remaining $4,500. Increase Social Security to $3,500 and the portfolio’s required contribution falls by $12,000 annually. That difference becomes particularly valuable during a severe bear market because fewer investments may need to be sold while prices are depressed.

The psychological effect can matter as much as the mathematics. Many retirees are more comfortable spending an automatic Social Security deposit than selling shares from a declining investment account, even when their financial plan says the withdrawal is sustainable. A larger guaranteed-income floor can therefore make it easier to maintain a long-term investment strategy rather than reacting emotionally when markets become volatile.

This does not mean delaying always protects the portfolio. Someone retiring at 62 who waits until 70 must fund those eight years from wages, cash or investments, and heavy early withdrawals can increase sequence risk rather than reduce it. The strategy is strongest when the household has sufficient bridge assets to reach 70 without dangerously depleting the portfolio.

5. Delaying Can Create Valuable Tax-Planning Years

The period between retirement and the start of Social Security can create an unusually useful tax-planning window. Someone who retires in the early or mid-60s may have no salary, no Social Security and no required minimum distributions yet. That can create several years in which taxable income is unusually low and the retiree has considerable control over how much income appears on the return.

Those years can be used to withdraw money deliberately from traditional IRAs or complete partial Roth conversions. A conversion generally makes previously untaxed retirement money taxable in the year of conversion, but moving money into Roth accounts can reduce future traditional account balances and the required distributions associated with them. Instead of waiting until large RMDs force taxable income onto the return later, retirees can decide how much income to recognize while lower tax brackets remain available.

Delaying Social Security can make that planning cleaner because Social Security benefits themselves can become taxable when other income rises. Once benefits, pensions and future RMDs overlap, there may be less space available for conversions at attractive rates. The correct strategy is not automatically to convert as much as possible before 70, because conversions can affect Medicare premiums, capital-gains taxation and state taxes, but delaying Social Security can create valuable flexibility that disappears later.

6. The Larger Benefit Comes With Inflation Protection

A $4,000 pension that never increases will not have the same purchasing power 20 years from now. Social Security has a valuable feature that many private income sources lack: Benefits receive cost-of-living adjustments when the program’s inflation formula calls for them. Since 1975, Social Security COLAs have been tied to changes in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W.

The 2026 Social Security COLA was 2.8%, increasing benefits for nearly 71 million beneficiaries beginning in January. The annual adjustment varies with inflation and can sometimes be zero, so it should not be confused with a guaranteed annual raise of a specific percentage. Its importance is that the benefit has a mechanism intended to preserve purchasing power over a retirement that may last several decades.

Delaying to 70 gives the retiree a larger starting amount on which future percentage COLAs are applied. If two people are otherwise entitled to $2,000 and $2,480 respectively, a future 3% COLA would add about $60 to the smaller payment and roughly $74 to the larger one. Over a long retirement, the dollar gap can therefore widen even though both beneficiaries receive the same percentage adjustment.

This becomes especially important for households whose other reliable income is largely fixed. A pension without inflation adjustments can lose significant purchasing power over 20 or 30 years, while investment withdrawals depend on market performance. Increasing the portion of essential expenses covered by inflation-adjusted Social Security can provide a valuable hedge against one of retirement’s hardest risks to predict.

7. More Guaranteed Income Can Make Retirement Easier to Live With

The strongest reason to wait until 70 may ultimately be less about maximizing Social Security and more about simplifying the later years of retirement. Managing investments, withdrawal rates and tax strategies may be relatively easy at 65, but those decisions can become more burdensome at 80 or 90. A larger Social Security payment automatically arriving every month can cover more housing, food, utilities and healthcare without requiring the retiree to make another portfolio decision.

This matters because financial complexity often increases at the same time people’s willingness to manage it decreases. A surviving spouse may have less investment experience than the spouse who originally handled the household finances, while cognitive decline can make complicated portfolios and withdrawal strategies harder to oversee. Building a larger guaranteed-income floor earlier can reduce the number of decisions that future household members must make under more difficult circumstances.

There is also a spending benefit. Retirees who have accumulated substantial portfolios can remain reluctant to withdraw from them because every sale feels like reducing security. Social Security feels different because the monthly payment is designed to be spent and will arrive again the following month. For some households, a larger benefit can therefore improve quality of life by creating permission to spend without constantly wondering whether the portfolio can afford it.

That peace of mind should not be dismissed as irrational simply because it is difficult to model. Retirement planning exists to create a sustainable life, not merely to maximize an ending account balance. If delaying Social Security allows essential expenses to be covered largely by guaranteed income while investments are reserved for travel, emergencies and discretionary goals, the household may find retirement easier to manage as well as financially stronger.

Waiting Until 70 Is Not Right for Everyone

The case for delaying is strongest for healthy retirees who expect above-average longevity, particularly higher earners in married households where the larger benefit could eventually protect a surviving spouse. It is also attractive for people who have enough savings to bridge the years before Social Security without placing excessive pressure on the portfolio. Under those circumstances, waiting converts financial resources that are available today into a larger inflation-adjusted income stream that becomes increasingly valuable with age.

The strategy becomes less compelling when health is poor, longevity expectations are significantly shortened or delaying would require dangerous withdrawals from an already strained portfolio. Someone who needs Social Security at 62 to avoid expensive debt or preserve essential savings may be making a perfectly rational decision by claiming earlier. The 8% delayed-retirement credit should not be viewed in isolation from the benefits that must be forgone to earn it.

There is also little reason to delay beyond 70. Social Security explicitly stops adding delayed-retirement credits at that age, so someone who reaches 70 and remains eligible generally gains nothing from postponing the retirement application further. Age 70 is therefore not simply another arbitrary milestone; it is the point at which the financial reward for waiting ends.

The better question is not whether everyone should claim at 70, but what problem Social Security is supposed to solve. If the goal is maximizing income during the early retirement years, an earlier claim may win. If the goal is creating the largest possible lifetime income floor, protecting a surviving spouse, reducing dependence on investments and insuring against living into the 90s, delaying can be extraordinarily valuable.

For the right retiree, waiting until 70 is not about proving that the break-even math works. It is about entering the later years of retirement with one of the strongest financial protections available: a larger check that arrives every month, adjusts for inflation and does not disappear because the stock market had a bad year.

Intended for educational purposes only. Opinions expressed are not intended as investment advice or to predict future performance. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Neither the information presented, nor any opinion expressed constitutes a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any security. Consult your financial professional before making any investment decisions. Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice.

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