Deciding when to start receiving Social Security retirement benefits can be a big decision that depends on a lot of factors. Of course, if someone is in a desperate financial situation the decision is easy and someone is probably going to begin collecting Social Security benefits as early as possible, but the general rule is that the longer you wait to collect benefits once you become eligible the higher your monthly payment will be up until age 70.
Out of necessity, some people begin collecting Social Security benefits as early as age 62, but their monthly amount is only about 75 percent of what their full retirement amount would be if they waited until age 66 and nearly 50 percent less than if they decided to wait until age 70. Fortunately Social Security allows someone to change their mind about when they want to begin collecting disability benefits. Anyone that decides to collect benefits early has up to one year to change their mind. This can be achieved by contacting Social Security and requesting to withdraw your application for early retirement. This is typically done by someone whose financial situation changes and Social Security benefits are not a necessity like when they originally opted to collect early. This allows the person to forgo collecting benefits and collect at a later date when their benefit amount increases.
There is one drawback to this option. If you decide you want to withdraw your application Social Security is going to ask for any money you previously received to be repaid.
Someone might decide that they want to stop receiving benefits after it has been a year or longer so they can collect a larger monthly benefit in the future. These people have the option to suspend their payments, but this option is only available to people who are between their full retirement age and 70. For each year someone waits to collect benefits they will receive an 8 percent increase.
