Model Social Security claiming ages

Beyond Payday lets you model claiming Social Security at any age from 62 to 70 — drag one slider and the projection instantly recalculates your monthly benefit, using the same reduction and delayed-credit rules the SSA uses.

Before you start

• Retirement planning is a Pro feature (included in the 30-day trial).
• Get your real benefit estimate from SSA.gov first — Beyond Payday adjusts whatever amount you enter for the age you choose; it doesn't calculate a benefit from your earnings history.
• You need permission to update retirement settings.

Steps

1. Go to Retirement (opens in a new tab) and open the Social Security settings card.
2. Turn on Include Social Security.
3. Drag the medal on the Age you start your checks slider to the age you want to model, anywhere from 62 to 70. If your full retirement age has months in it (born 1955–1959), a button under the slider sets it exactly, for example "Full retirement age (66 and 4 months)".
4. Enter Your monthly check if you start at X — your estimated benefit at that exact age, from your SSA statement. Beyond Payday keeps the number you typed and works out your full benefit from it and your birth year. If you move the slider again later, it recalculates the check for the new age.
5. If you're married, repeat with Age Spouse starts their checks and Spouse's monthly check if they start at X. A spouse with no work record of their own still sets a claiming age and leaves the check at $0: the projection gives them the spousal benefit. The spouse's slider starts at 67 until you move it.
6. Set Yearly raise on your checks — it defaults to 2.5%. This is the yearly raise Social Security gives to keep up with inflation, called a cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA.
7. Scroll up to see how the change ripples through your projection.

How the projection handles it

The monthly projection checks your claiming age using calendar months at its 15th-of-the-month snapshot. A claim date after the 15th first appears in the following month. The age rounded for display does not decide when payments start.

• Full retirement age (FRA): the age you get your full benefit. It comes from your birth year, as at the SSA: 66 if you were born 1943–1954, then 2 months later for each year (66 and 2 months for 1955, up to 66 and 10 months for 1959), and 67 for anyone born 1960 or later. A January 1 birthday counts as the year before. Each of you gets your own.
• Reduction and delayed credits: claiming before your FRA permanently reduces your benefit — 25% at 62 with an FRA of 66, 30% with an FRA of 67. Claiming after it adds 8% for each year you wait, up to 70 — 32% more at 70 with an FRA of 66, 24% with an FRA of 67.
• Yearly raise: your benefit grows every year by that rate, both before and after you start claiming.
• Spousal benefits: if you're married, the projection automatically checks whether you'd get more from 50% of your spouse's full benefit than from your own — and uses whichever is higher. This works even if one of you has no work record: leave that person's monthly check at $0 and they still get up to 50% of the other's benefit once the other has started claiming. Spousal amounts are capped at half the other spouse's full benefit and reduced if claimed before the claiming spouse's own FRA; they don't get the bonus for delaying past FRA that your own benefit gets.
• Still working before Full Retirement Age? If you claim early and keep earning active income, the projection applies Social Security's earnings test: it withholds $1 of benefit for every $2 you earn above the SSA's current annual limit (the app keeps this updated). In the calendar year you reach your FRA, it's $1 for every $3 above a higher limit, counting only what you earn in the months before you reach it. Withholding stops the month you reach your FRA.
• Taxes: Social Security isn't always fully taxable. The projection uses the IRS's formula, based on your "provisional income" (your other income plus half your Social Security benefit), to work out how much — 0%, up to 50%, or up to 85% — counts as taxable.

Compare claiming ages side by side

The Retirement page can also show a Compare claiming ages card. This card is only turned on for some accounts. If you don't see it, it isn't on for yours.

• It lists each age you can still choose, with a Monthly benefit (before Medicare) column and Total by columns that add up the checks to a later age. Ages you have already passed are left out.
• A button such as "Use age 67 in my plan" sets that claiming age in your plan. Nothing changes until you select it.
• If you're married, You and Your spouse tabs switch between you. A spouse with no benefit of their own still gets a tab. It shows the spousal benefit: up to half of your own benefit at full retirement age, paid once you have started yours.
• If an enabled Social Security Retirement income on the Income page belongs to that person, the card says they have already started. The numbers are then for reference only, with no button.
• For a married couple, a line notes that your claim age also sets the survivor benefit your spouse could get.
• When an age before full retirement age is listed, a note explains the earnings test: Social Security holds back $1 for every $2 you earn over a yearly limit, and you get it back later as a bigger monthly benefit.
• The numbers are in today's dollars, before taxes and before Medicare premiums. Not compared yet lists what the card leaves out.

Good to know

• Already receiving Social Security? An enabled, ongoing Social Security Retirement entry on Income fills a missing retirement benefit for its owner. It uses the actual current monthly amount and adds only future COLA. No historical claim age, additional spousal payment or repeated earnings-test withholding is inferred. Entering a retirement benefit, including 0, overrides that fallback; switching off Include Social Security excludes it from future projections. The Current column still shows actual Income entries. Survivor estimates use the current paid check, since its historical claim record is unknown. A larger inherited check uses normal Social Security tax rules, rather than inheriting the deceased recipient’s tax-exempt flag.

• Your birthday sets your FRA. Until it's on file, Beyond Payday uses 67 and the Social Security card says so, with a link to add it in Settings (opens in a new tab) > Family. Adding or changing a birthday later keeps the check you typed for your chosen age and re-works the rest.

• A spouse with no birthday is left out of the projection — their Social Security, pensions and retirement age — because their age places every event. The Retirement page shows a note with a link to add it.

• Survivor benefits are modeled when one spouse reaches their Plan until age (Retirement Age settings, 95 by default) before the other. At that age, that person's benefit stops and the surviving spouse keeps the higher of the two benefits, as Social Security does. As at SSA, a survivor benefit started before the survivor's own survivor full retirement age is reduced, down to 71.5% at 60. That age runs two years behind the retirement one (66 if born 1945–1956, rising to 67 for 1962 or later). If the person who died had claimed early it's limited to the larger of what they were collecting or 82.5% of their full benefit. Without a spouse, the projection simply ends at that age. Left at the default of 95, no death is modeled.

• The slider only goes from 62 to 70 because those are the real minimum and maximum Social Security claiming ages.

• Pro members can ask Beth to compare claiming at different ages side by side.

• Guided setup asks this same question in plain language — see Set up your retirement plan with guided setup.