While you can begin receiving Social Security benefits as early as age 62, doing so will reduce your monthly payments. If you’re able to wait, your future benefits will increase. Once you reach “full retirement age,” your Social Security income grows by up to 8% for each year you delay, until age 70. After age 70, there’s no further benefit to waiting.

The decision on when to start Social Security is deeply personal and depends on various factors, such as your other income sources, life expectancy, and your spouse’s needs. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but if you’re in good health and financially able, we generally recommend waiting until full retirement age—or even until age 70—to maximize your benefits. This approach can lead to higher income throughout a potentially long retirement.

Social Security pays benefits to children.

Social Security pays benefits to unmarried children whose parents are deceased, disabled, or retired. See Benefits for Children for the specific requirements.

Social Security can pay benefits to parents.

Most people know that when a worker dies, we can pay benefits to surviving spouses and children. What you may not know is that under certain circumstances, we can pay benefits to a surviving parent. Read our Fact Sheet Parent’s Benefits, for the details.

Widows’ and widowers’ payments can continue if remarriage occurs after age 60.

Remarriage ends survivor’s benefits when it occurs before age 60, but benefits can continue for marriages after age 60.

If a spouse draws reduced retirement benefits before starting spouse’s benefits (his or her spouse is younger), the spouse will not receive 50 percent of the worker’s benefit amount.

Your full spouse’s benefit could be up to 50 percent of your spouse’s full retirement age amount if you are full retirement age when you take it. If you qualify for your own retirement benefit and a spouse’s benefit, we always pay your own benefit first. (For example, you are eligible for $400 from your own retirement and $150 as a spouse for a total of $550.) The reduction rates for retirement and spouses benefits are different. If your spouse is younger, you cannot receive benefits unless he or she is receiving benefits (except for divorced spouses). If you took your reduced retirement first while waiting for your spouse to reach retirement age, when you add spouse’s benefits later, your own retirement portion remains reduced which causes the total retirement and spouses benefit together to total less than 50 percent of the worker’s amount. See more on the Social Security website SSA.gov.

If your spouse’s retirement benefit is higher than your retirement benefit, and he or she chooses to take reduced benefits and dies first, your survivor benefit will be reduced, but may be higher than what your spouse received.

If the deceased worker started receiving reduced retirement benefits before their full retirement age, a special rule called the retirement insurance benefit limit may apply to the surviving spouse. The retirement insurance benefit limit is the maximum survivor benefit you may receive. Generally, the limit is the higher of:

• The reduced monthly retirement benefit to which the deceased spouse would have been entitled if they had lived, or
• 82.5 percent of the unreduced deceased spouse’s monthly benefit if they had started receiving benefits at their full retirement age (rather than choosing to receive a reduced retirement benefit early).

Source// ssa.gov: Jim Borland, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Communications

Social Security benefits are just one part of your overall retirement strategy, but they often play a crucial role in providing cash flow for many retirees. The illustration above demonstrates how the timing of your decision to begin taking benefits can affect the monthly amount you receive. If you choose to begin collecting at full retirement age, you’ll receive 100% of your entitled Social Security benefits.