All United States citizens can apply for Social Security retirement at age 62. Applying for retirement at this age is known as Early Retirement Age (ERA) and has some advantages and disadvantages. Among the biggest disadvantages we find is the drop in the amount of money. If you start collecting Social Security at age 62 you will receive less money, but it may be worth it.
The maximum retirement age is 70. After this age, there are no further benefits. Full Retirement Age (FRA) can be taken at age 67. At this age you get a better retirement benefit, although it also has its disadvantages. If you are thinking about applying for the ERA, you can certainly use all the information you can about Social Security.
Retiring at age 62 means less Social Security money
The amount of money you receive on a monthly basis with your Social Security depends on many factors. Among those factors is the age at which you retire. In this case we are talking about retirement at age 62 or ERA. When you retire at this age, you do not receive 100% of the retirement you are entitled to.
When you apply for Social Security retirement at age 62, you will receive about 80% of the money you are entitled to. You can use a Social Security calculator to find out the approximate final amount of your Social Security check. Remember that 20% must be subtracted from the FRA. This means that if your final benefit is $1,800, you would receive about $1,440 per month.
The great advantage of this option is that you can have savings saved. If you have a good amount of money saved, you can take this option. Asking to retire at age 62 means a smaller pension. But that doesn’t always matter if you have your home paid for and have few bills.
Advantages of retiring at age 62
No one can deny that retiring at 62 means earning less money. But it may be worth it to retire at that age. If you collect Social Security through the ERA, you will have more years to enjoy your retirement pension. It all depends on how you want to approach it.
Since you have more years to enjoy your time out of work, you can enjoy more of that time. On the other hand, if you have saved for a while, you may have enough savings to not need a larger pension. Other options are to create an alternative pension plan, have investments or continue working after retiring at 62, although you have to be careful with taxes in this case.
On the other hand, you should not ask for retirement at age 62 if you do not have savings and your home paid for. It is a bad idea to rely only on the benefits you will receive in the future. It is much better to wait and ask for a Full Retirement Age in case your ERA retirement pension is too small.