Full Retirement Age

• Your full retirement age depends on the year you were born. The younger you are, the older your full retirement age. For example, if you were born in or before 1937, your full retirement age was 65. The full retirement age for people born between 1943 and 1954 is 66. If you were born in 1960 or later, your full retirement age will be 67. There are incremental increases in retirement age if you were born between 1937 and 1943 or between 1954 and 1960.
  
  

Age at Which You May Collect Benefits

• You may start receiving Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62 or as late as age 70. Social Security disability benefits are different from retirement benefits and age criteria for receiving those benefits are also different.
  
  

Monthly Benefits

• Your monthly payments will vary depending on when you decide to start receiving Social Security retirement benefits. As an example, a worker whose full retirement age is 66 would receive $1,000 a month if she started collecting benefits at her full retirement age. If she started receiving benefits at age 62, she would receive $750 a month. If she started collecting at age 70, she would receive $1,320. The amount of your monthly benefit does not increase further, even if you wait longer to start collecting.
  
  

Life Expectancy

• If you live to your expected life expectancy for someone your age, you would receive the same total amount of benefits over your lifetime no matter at what age you started collecting Social Security retirement benefits.
  
  

Spouse's Benefits

• Your spouse may be entitled to Social Security benefits based on your record (as opposed to any benefits she is entitled based on his own record). Her benefits based on your record will be affected by when you start collecting benefits. If, for example, you were born in 1943 and your full retirement age is 66, and you start collecting at age 62, her benefit would be reduced by 30 percent. So based on the example in Section 3, your benefit would be $750 and your spouse's benefit would be $375, for a total monthly benefit of $1,175. If you waited until your full retirement age to begin collecting, your benefit would be $1,000 and your spouse's benefit would be $500, for a total monthly benefit of $1,500.