When Should You Claim Social Security? A Greenville, SC CFP® Professional's Q&A Guide for Pre-Retirees

By Bart Street, CFP®, Street Wealth Management Published: July 13, 2026

The single most consequential financial decision most retirees make is when to claim Social Security. It's also the one people most often make based on emotion, rumor, or fatigue rather than math. The wrong answer can cost a household hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. The right answer is almost never the same for any two situations.

This Q&A covers the questions I hear most from clients in Greenville, the Upstate, and across South Carolina about Social Security timing — when to claim, how spousal and survivor benefits work, how it's taxed, and how the decision interacts with the rest of a retirement plan.

If you haven't already, you may also find it useful to read Finding a Financial Advisor in Greenville, SC, which covers the broader context of choosing a planner.

When should I claim Social Security?

The right age to claim Social Security depends on six main factors:

1. Your current health and family longevity history. If you and your family typically live well into your 80s and 90s, delaying often pays off. If you have serious health concerns, claiming earlier may make more sense.

2. Whether you're married, and which spouse is the higher earner. The higher earner's claiming decision affects the survivor benefit for both of you.

3. Whether you have other assets you can draw on between retirement and your claiming age. This is the bridge math.

4. Your projected tax bracket each year you claim or delay. Social Security can interact heavily with your other taxable income.

5. Your need for guaranteed, inflation-adjusted income. Social Security is one of the few sources most retirees have.

6. Your personal preferences about income, peace of mind, and legacy goals.

   
   

For most pre-retirees with meaningful assets, the math favors delaying past 62 — and often past Full Retirement Age — for at least one spouse. But "the math favors" and "the right answer for you" aren't always the same thing. The decision is irreversible in most cases, which is why thinking it through carefully matters.

What is Full Retirement Age, and why does it matter?

Full Retirement Age (FRA) is the age at which the Social Security Administration considers you eligible to receive your full benefit — what they call your "primary insurance amount." For most people retiring today, FRA is between 66 and 67. Your exact FRA depends on the year you were born and can be confirmed at ssa.gov/myaccount.

FRA matters because two things happen at it:

• Claiming before FRA permanently reduces your monthly benefit. Claiming at age 62, the earliest possible age, reduces your benefit by roughly 25–30% versus your FRA benefit, depending on your specific FRA.

• Delaying past FRA increases your benefit by approximately 8% per year, every year up to age 70.

  
  

FRA is the dividing line between "reduced for life" and "increased for life."

What happens to my benefit if I claim at 62?

Claiming at 62 permanently reduces your monthly Social Security benefit. The reduction is roughly 25–30% versus claiming at your FRA, and approximately 43% versus claiming at 70 — depending on your specific birth year.

That reduction lasts the rest of your life. Cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) are applied to the reduced base each year, so the dollar gap between an early claim and a delayed claim widens over time, not narrows.

For pre-retirees with significant assets, claiming at 62 also has a second cost: it locks in a lower survivor benefit for a spouse who may outlive you by ten or fifteen years. That's often the more expensive consequence in dollar terms, and it's rarely discussed in the standard "should I claim early?" conversation.

What happens to my benefit if I delay until 70?

For every year you delay claiming between your FRA and age 70, your benefit grows by approximately 8% per year. There is no benefit to delaying beyond age 70 — the increase stops.

The total increase from FRA to 70 is approximately 24–32%, depending on your specific FRA. Combined with the reduction for early claiming, the spread between claiming at 62 and claiming at 70 can be 70% or more in monthly benefit terms — for the rest of your life, indexed annually for inflation.

For high earners, married couples coordinating two benefits, and anyone with family longevity history, the cumulative value of delaying often runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars over a household's joint lifetime.

What is the "break-even age"?

The break-even age is the age at which the cumulative benefits from a delayed claim catch up to (and then exceed) the cumulative benefits from claiming earlier.

For most people, the break-even age between claiming at 62 versus FRA is somewhere in the late 70s. Between claiming at FRA versus age 70, it's typically in the early 80s.

If you live past your break-even age, delaying paid off. If you don't, claiming earlier paid off in pure cumulative-benefit terms.

Break-even math is useful for framing the decision but should never be the only factor. Lifetime longevity-protection value, survivor-benefit planning, and tax interactions often matter more than the raw break-even number — especially for married couples and high earners.

How do spousal Social Security benefits work?

A spouse can claim a benefit based on their own earnings record OR a "spousal benefit" based on their spouse's earnings record — whichever is higher. The spousal benefit can be up to 50% of the higher-earning spouse's FRA benefit, but only if the lower-earning spouse claims at or after their own FRA.

Claiming a spousal benefit before FRA permanently reduces it.

In couples where one spouse earned significantly more than the other, coordinating these two decisions is one of the highest-leverage planning conversations a married couple can have before retirement. The order in which you each claim — and the ages at which you each claim — can move tens of thousands of dollars over the household's joint lifetime.

What is a survivor benefit, and why does it matter so much?

When one spouse dies, the surviving spouse receives the larger of (a) their own benefit, or (b) the deceased spouse's benefit — but they keep only one. The other goes away.

This is why the higher earner's claiming decision matters so much in a married couple. If the higher earner claims at 62, the surviving spouse — often the lower earner, and statistically often the wife — is locked into a permanently reduced survivor benefit for the rest of her life. That can be decades.

If the higher earner instead delays to 70, the survivor benefit is the larger 70-claim amount. For a surviving spouse who lives another 15–20 years, that single decision can be worth several hundred thousand dollars in additional lifetime income.

This is the single most underappreciated factor in Social Security timing for married couples, and it's the reason most of my pre-retiree clients who can afford to delay end up doing so for the higher earner.

How is Social Security taxed?

Social Security benefits can be subject to federal income tax depending on your "combined income" — defined as your adjusted gross income, plus any tax-exempt interest, plus half of your Social Security benefits.

• If combined income is below approximately $25,000 (single) or $32,000 (married filing jointly), benefits are generally not taxable.

• Above those thresholds, up to 50% of benefits may be taxable.

• At higher income levels (above approximately $34,000 single or $44,000 married filing jointly), up to 85% of benefits may be taxable.

  
  

Importantly, these thresholds are not indexed for inflation. They were set decades ago and never adjusted. The practical effect: more retirees become subject to Social Security taxation each year by default, even as their real income stays flat.

For pre-retirees building tax-diversified accounts — see our earlier post on account-taxability diversification — the ability to draw from Roth or brokerage accounts in retirement to keep combined income below these thresholds is a meaningful planning lever.

Does South Carolina tax Social Security benefits?

South Carolina does not tax Social Security benefits. This is one of the reasons South Carolina is consistently ranked as a tax-friendly state for retirees.

The state also offers a meaningful retirement income deduction: up to $10,000 of retirement income per person can be excluded from state income tax, plus a separate $15,000 deduction from any source of income for residents age 65 and older.

For Greenville-area retirees, that means the only Social Security taxation conversation that really matters is the federal one — but federal taxation can still take a significant bite if your other income isn't managed thoughtfully across your retirement years.

What if I keep working after I claim?

If you claim Social Security before your FRA and keep working, the Social Security Administration applies an "earnings test." For 2026 (subject to annual adjustment), if you earn above approximately $23,400, $1 in benefits is withheld for every $2 you earn over that limit.

In the year you reach FRA, the limit is significantly higher (about $62,000 in 2026), and the withholding rate drops to $1 for every $3 above the limit — and only counts earnings before the month you reach FRA.

After you reach FRA, the earnings test goes away entirely. You can earn any amount and your Social Security is not reduced.

Importantly, the "withheld" benefits aren't permanently lost. The Social Security Administration recalculates your benefit at FRA to credit you for the months when benefits were withheld. So the earnings test is more of a timing and cash-flow issue than a permanent loss — but it still matters in any year where you're managing total income.

How does Social Security claiming interact with Medicare and IRMAA?

Two important interactions:

Medicare enrollment. Medicare eligibility starts at 65, regardless of when you claim Social Security. If you're already receiving Social Security at 65, you're automatically enrolled in Medicare Part A and B. If you're not yet receiving Social Security, you have to actively enroll. Missing the enrollment window can result in lifetime Part B premium penalties.

IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount). Once you're on Medicare, your premium for Part B and Part D is calculated based on your Adjusted Gross Income from two years ago. Above certain thresholds, your premium goes up in tiers — sometimes by hundreds of dollars per month, per spouse.

Social Security claiming decisions often interact with IRMAA planning because the year you claim affects your AGI, which affects your Medicare premium two years later. This is one of the most overlooked interactions in retirement planning. (A dedicated post on IRMAA and Medicare premium planning is coming next in this series.)

How do I think about my own claiming strategy?

A useful starting framework:

1. Verify your benefit estimates. Create an account at ssa.gov/myaccount and review your earnings history and projected benefits at 62, FRA, and 70.

2. Have an honest conversation about longevity. Family history, current health, and personal expectations all matter. There's no perfect answer, but a thoughtful guess is much better than no guess.

3. If you're married, model both spouses' decisions together. The optimization isn't about either of you individually — it's about the household's joint cash flow and the surviving spouse's income for whichever of you lives longer.

4. Model the tax interactions. Where Social Security sits inside your total income each year — relative to ordinary income from Required Minimum Distributions, capital gains from brokerage accounts, and Roth withdrawals — determines how heavily it's taxed.

5. Stress test for survivor scenarios. What does the surviving spouse's cash flow look like in the year after one of you dies? If that picture is concerning, the higher earner's claiming decision deserves another look.

6. Get a second set of eyes. This decision is once-in-a-lifetime for most people and is largely irreversible. Working through it with a fiduciary who has done it hundreds of times is worth doing — even if you arrive at the same answer you would have on your own, you'll be more confident in it.

   
   

If you're 50–65 and thinking through your own Social Security timing, I'd be glad to talk. You can reach us at:

• Phone: 864-232-8111

• Text: 864-302-2888

• Email: bart@streetwealthmanagement.com

• Online: streetwealthmanagement.com

  
  

About Bart Street, CFP®

Bart Street, CFP®, is the founder of Street Wealth Management in Greenville, South Carolina, where he focuses on retirement income planning, tax-efficient withdrawal strategy, and account-taxability diversification for pre-retirees and retirees in the Upstate. He holds the Certified Financial Planner™ designation, the Series 65 Uniform Investment Adviser Law license, the Series 63 Uniform Securities Agent State Law license, and the Series 6 securities license. Securities and investment advisory services are offered through Osaic Wealth, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC.

Compliance disclaimer

This article is for educational purposes only and is not personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Social Security rules and tax laws are subject to change. Specific dollar thresholds referenced (earnings test limits, IRMAA tiers, and combined income thresholds) are accurate as of the publication date and adjust periodically. Your specific situation may differ from the general examples discussed here. For advice tailored to your situation, consult a qualified professional.