Retirement planning

Social Security claiming breakeven

Compares cumulative benefits across claiming ages so you can see when an earlier, smaller check is overtaken by a later, larger one.

Birth date: As of: Current age:

This is a rough personal tool, not financial advice. It assumes flat benefits (no COLA), payments starting the month of the claim age, and it has no mortality or life-expectancy modeling at all — the “best” age depends heavily on how long you assume you'll live and on the inflation rate you pick below. Different assumptions can point to very different ages. Use it to build intuition, not as an answer.

Your numbers

Birth date, as-of date & benefit estimates

Birth date

As of (calendar date)

Inflation assumption

Claim age	Claim date	Monthly benefit	Annual benefit

Add claim age

Edit the monthly benefit for any claim age to match your own Social Security estimate (see your my Social Security statement). Add or remove ages with the controls above/below the table. Values are saved in your browser only — nothing is sent anywhere.

Compare two ages

When does the later age catch up?

Earlier claim

Later claim

Real breakeven uses the inflation rate set above.

Visual

Cumulative benefits received, by age

Nominal dollars

Real dollars

All the numbers

Cumulative total collected — nominal dollars

Rows are the age you start Social Security; columns are the age you reach. Each cell is the running total of benefits paid out by then. Scroll right for later ages.

lowest that yearmiddlehighest that year — colored down each column

All the numbers

Cumulative total collected — real dollars

The same running totals, restated in today's purchasing power at the inflation rate selected above.

lowest that yearmiddlehighest that year — colored down each column

All the numbers

Gap behind the leader — real dollars

For each age reached, how far behind the best strategy that year each start age is, in today's dollars. The leader is $0 (green); everyone else is negative.

leader ($0)middlefurthest behind — colored down each column

Reference

Breakeven age for every pair

Row = earlier claim, column = later claim. Cell is the age at which the later age's total catches up.