Tools/Retirement withdrawals & early access/Social Security Break-Even Calculator✓ CHECKED · SEP 29, 2026
When should I claim Social Security, and what will I get if I stop working early?
Estimate your Social Security benefit at 62, full retirement age or 70, counting the years you won’t work, and see the break-even age for each.
ESTIMATED MONTHLY BENEFIT
$3,129a month
At these inputs, working until 45 leaves 12 of the 35 averaged years at zero, and the estimate is $3,129 a month in today’s dollars if you start at 67, your full retirement age. If you worked until 67 instead, it would be $3,872 a month, $743 more. Starting at 67 catches up with starting at 62 in total collected at age 78 years 8 months, with no interest counted.
Start at 62
$2,190
Start at 67 (full)
$3,129
Start at 70
$3,880
Break-even 62 v 67
78 yrs 8 mo
UNDERSTAND YOUR RESULT
Total collected by each age: when does waiting pay off?
Start at 62Start at 67Start at 70
In today’s dollars, with no interest on the money, the later start catches up in total collected at these ages: 67 with 62 at 78 years 8 months, 70 with 62 at 80 years 5 months, 70 with 67 at 82 years 6 months. Before each of those ages the earlier start is ahead.
What you would get each month, by the age you start ($ a month)
Age 6270% of the full amount
2,190
Age 6375% of the full amount
2,346
Age 6480% of the full amount
2,503
Age 6586.7% of the full amount
2,711
Age 6693.3% of the full amount
2,920
Age 67 (full)The full amount
3,129
Age 68108% of the full amount
3,379
Age 69116% of the full amount
3,629
Age 70124% of the full amount
3,880
In today’s dollars, starting at 62 pays $2,190 a month (70% of the full amount) and starting at 70 pays $3,880 a month (124% of the full amount), before income tax and the Medicare premium taken from the payment.
What each year of work adds ($ a month at full retirement age)
Working until 50 instead of 45 would raise the benefit you get at full retirement age from $3,129 to $3,439 a month. By age 57 you would have 35 years of earnings; after that each year only replaces your lowest-earning year, so it adds less.
What moves the needle
Each row re-runs the calculation with one change. Click to apply.How it's computed
FORMULA
AIME = highest 35 years of earnings (missing years = 0) ÷ 420, cut to the dollar
PIA = 90% × first $1,286 + 32% × AIME from $1,286 to $7,749 + 15% × the rest
Benefit = PIA × (1 − 5/9% × months early up to 36 − 5/12% × months beyond), or × (1 + 2/3% × months after full age, to 70)
Break-even = first age where the later start has collected at least as much in total as the earlier start
- Amounts are in today’s dollars. Cost-of-living adjustments are assumed to match inflation, and average wages to keep pace with prices, so the 2026 formula (bend points $1,286 and $7,749) applies to your future record unchanged. SSA’s Trustees assume earnings grow faster than prices, which would make a younger worker’s benefit higher than shown here. For each 1% a year that wages outgrow prices, the benefit of someone 26 years from age 60 would be about 30% higher. The 2026 formula is built on 2024 wage levels, so close to 62 a statement is likely to show a little less than this page.
- Your pay is taken as $145,000 a year (the taxable maximum, $184,500 in 2026, is the cap) for every year until age 45. Social Security indexes older earnings by average wage growth; this page treats your pay as already at today’s wage level, so it applies no indexing. Earlier years are assumed to have paid 2% a year less than the next, the default SSA documents for its Quick Calculator. Years after you stop count as zero.
- The highest 35 years are averaged and a missing year counts as zero. Here that is 23 years of earnings and 12 zero years. You also need 40 credits (about 10 years of work) to qualify.
- Break-even adds up the monthly payments from each start age, with no interest on the money, and finds the first age at which the later start is at least even.
- Scheduled benefits are shown. SSA’s 2026 Trustees Report projects the retirement trust fund can pay them in full until the fourth quarter of 2032, when about 78% would be payable, unless Congress acts.
- Not modelled: spousal, survivor and family benefits; income tax on benefits (up to 85% can be taxable); the Medicare premium taken from the payment; the first-year monthly rule under the earnings test (the test is applied here in whole 12-month periods from your start age, not calendar years); and delayed credits earned in your starting year being paid the following January.
WORKED EXAMPLE · SAMPLE NUMBERS
Your record: 23 years of earnings, so 12 of the 35 averaged years are zero. The highest years add up to $3,128,424; ÷ 420 months = $7,448 a month (AIME). PIA = 90% × $1,286 = $1,157.40 + 32% × $6,162 = $1,971.84 = $3,129.24, cut down to the dime: $3,129.20, your benefit at full retirement age (67). Starting at 67 is the full amount: $3,129.20 × 100% = $3,129 a month, cut down to the dollar.
SOURCES
[1]Cost-of-Living Increase and Other Determinations for 2026Social Security Administration, Federal Register 90 FR 49047 (Nov. 3, 2025)[2]Benefit Calculation Examples for Workers Retiring in 2026SSA Office of the Chief Actuary[3]Effect of Early or Delayed Retirement on Retirement BenefitsSSA Office of the Chief Actuary[4]Receiving Benefits While WorkingSocial Security Administration[5]The 2026 Annual Report of the Social Security Trustees: SummarySocial Security Administration, Office of the Chief Actuary (released June 9, 2026)HSBuilt by Hussain Sehorewala · checked against worked examples · Sep 29, 2026
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Questions about this result
No single answer fits everyone, because it depends on how long you live and on what else you would live on until then. The arithmetic is fixed, though. For anyone with a full retirement age of 67 (born 1960 or later), starting at 62 pays 70% of the full amount, starting at 67 pays 100% and starting at 70 pays 124%. With no interest on the money, starting at 67 has collected at least as much in total as starting at 62 from about age 78 years 8 months, and starting at 70 catches up with 62 at about 80 years 5 months and with 67 at about 82 years 6 months (rounding each payment to the dollar can move a date by a month). For a married couple, a surviving spouse can step up to the deceased worker’s benefit, so delaying the larger benefit can raise what a survivor receives; survivor benefits are not calculated on this page.
Social Security averages your highest 35 years of earnings, and every year short of 35 is counted as a zero. That average is then run through a formula weighted toward lower averages: for people who turn 62 in 2026, 90% of the first $1,286 a month, 32% of the amount up to $7,749 and 15% above that. Because of the weighting, the benefit falls by a smaller percentage than the average does when you stop early. You also need 40 credits, about 10 years of work, to qualify for a retirement benefit at all.
Yes, but if you start before your full retirement age and earn wages or self-employment income above a limit, Social Security withholds part of your benefit. In 2026 the limit is $24,480 a year and $1 is withheld for every $2 above it. In the calendar year you reach full retirement age the limit is $65,160 on earnings in the months before the month you reach it, with $1 withheld for every $3 above. From the month you reach full retirement age nothing is withheld. Withheld benefits are not lost: SSA recalculates your benefit at full retirement age to credit the months it withheld. Only earned income counts, not investment income, pensions or withdrawals from retirement accounts.
This page shows the benefits current law schedules. In its 2026 report, released June 9, 2026, the Social Security Trustees project that the retirement trust fund (OASI) can pay scheduled benefits in full until the fourth quarter of 2032, when about 78% of them would be payable from incoming payroll taxes, a share projected to fall to 62% by 2100. Counting the retirement and disability funds together, which the law does not allow without a change, full payment would last until the third quarter of 2034, with 83% payable then. These are projections under current law, not a forecast of what Congress will do, and they matter most for people decades from claiming.
No. The Social Security Fairness Act (Public Law 118-273, signed January 5, 2025) repealed both, effective for benefits for months after December 2023. This calculator does not apply them, so a pension from work that did not pay Social Security tax no longer lowers the retirement benefit shown here. Spousal and survivor benefits, which the offset also affected, are not calculated on this page.
Your Social Security Statement is built from your actual earnings record, so it is more accurate than any estimate rebuilt from a few numbers, and it states its estimates in today’s dollars, as this page does. SSA’s statement and calculators assume you keep working at your current pay until you claim, so for a planned stop at 45 they show more than this page does. You can see it by signing in to a my Social Security account at ssa.gov, where you can also check that every year of your pay is recorded. Expect this page to differ from it, especially if your pay changed a lot over the years or you are close to 62.
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