Key Points
You have a choice about when you claim your Social Security retirement benefits. They become available to you for the first time at age 62, and that remains a popular age to claim because many people are eager to start.
However, there are undoubtedly some high costs to starting benefits right away. And while some of them are obvious and hit you immediately, there are also hidden costs that many retirees don’t think about when they jump into collecting payments.
You need to consider this cost of claiming Social Security too early
An early Social Security claim is one that happens prior to your full retirement age (FRA). Your FRA is 67 if you were born in 1960 or later. Claiming even a single month before that is considered early filing.
The most obvious cost of an early claim comes from early-filing penalties that hit your check immediately. These penalties total:
- 5/9 of 1% for each of the first 12 months you claim benefits before your FRA
- 5/12 of 1% for each additional month beyond the first 36 months
This adds up to a 30% reduction in monthly benefits for someone who claims Social Security at 62 instead of waiting until 67 (assuming that’s their FRA).
If you were expecting your standard Social Security benefit to provide you with $2,000 in monthly income (which is fairly close to the average benefit received among all retirees in 2026), this 30% reduction would result in just $1,400 in benefits instead. This reduction is usually easy to see before you claim benefits if you check your online account. You can see what your benefits are at different ages by signing in to your my Social Security account.
However, there’s also a cost many people overlook. Since you’re shrinking your starting benefit, all future Social Security cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) will provide you with a smaller dollar-for-dollar increase in your check than you could have had if you’d waited.
Smaller COLAs are a hidden cost of an early Social Security claim
To be clear, your Social Security COLA will be the same on a percentage basis as it would have been if you had waited to claim your benefit. All retirees get the same percentage-based adjustment each year to help benefits keep pace with inflation. In 2026, for example, the COLA was 2.8%.
However, your percentage-based increase is applied to a smaller starting amount thanks to your early benefit claim. A 2.8% increase on a $1,400 check is just $39.20 per month, while a 2.8% increase on a $2,000 check is $56.
The extra money that comes from the application of the COLA to a larger underlying benefit can make more of an impact on your finances — especially as Medicare premium increases typically reduce the amount of your COLA you actually see in your bank account.
For example, in 2026, Medicare premiums went from $185 to $202.90. Since most retirees who are 65 and over have Medicare Part B premiums taken from their Social Security payments, someone with a $56 raise who faces this $17.90 increase would still bring home $38.10 extra per month to spend.
But if you shrunk the benefit your COLA is applied to and are getting just $39.20 as a result, you’d be left with only about $21 more coming into your account after the raise is applied. That’s not much of an increase.
The reality is, if you shrink your Social Security checks, Social Security will provide a smaller amount of monthly income for the rest of your life. Of course, you’ll have received benefits for more years than someone who waited. But for many people, delaying a little bit longer to end up with higher monthly checks and bigger future dollar-for-dollar COLA increases ends up being a better bet for their financial security.
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