On Sept. 22, I spent part of the day at the high school speaking with students in Junior Seminar, a program offered by ACE MV that helps juniors explore career paths and prepare for life after graduation. ACE MV does a lot of good work connecting Islanders with opportunities to learn and build new skills, and I appreciated the chance to be part of that. That evening, I was at Stillpoint talking about Social Security with people thinking about retirement. Two very different audiences, but both conversations were about preparing for what comes next.
As an MVRHS graduate, it was fun to be back talking about my own path, from working at a large financial services company to moving home and starting Vineyard Wealth Group. One of the things I enjoy most about running my own business is having the flexibility to spend time educating people in the community. Being involved was a big part of why I moved back, and organizations like ACE MV and Stillpoint make it easy to find meaningful ways to contribute.
Thank you to both organizations for having me and to everyone who participated. For those who couldn’t make it to the Social Security discussion, I wanted to share a few of the things we covered.
Before deciding when to claim Social Security, it helps to know what you’re actually working with. You generally need 40 work credits, roughly 10 years of covered work, to qualify for retirement benefits on your own record. Your benefit is based on your 35 highest-earning years, with earlier earnings generally adjusted for wage growth. If you have fewer than 35 years, zeros fill the remaining spots. A few additional working years can sometimes make a meaningful difference, particularly if they replace years with little or no income.
A good first step is to create a my Social Security account at ssa.gov. Review your annual earnings history and estimated benefits. It’s much easier to have a useful conversation about claiming when you’re looking at your own numbers.
Of course, one of the first questions people ask is whether Social Security will still be there. It’s an understandable concern. The program has a real funding problem, but running out of trust fund reserves does not mean it stops collecting money or paying benefits. Workers and employers would still be paying into the system.
The 2026 Trustees Report projects that the retirement and survivor trust fund will exhaust its reserves in 2032. At that point, ongoing income would cover about 78 percent of scheduled benefits if Congress makes no changes. You may also see a figure of 83 percent in 2034. That estimate combines the retirement and disability funds, which would require a change in the law. These are meaningful shortfalls to consider in a retirement plan, but they are very different from assuming you’ll receive nothing.
The next question is when to start. You can begin retirement benefits as early as 62, and waiting increases your monthly benefit up to age 70. For people born in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67. Claiming before then reduces your benefit by about 5 to 6.7 percent for each year early (a maximum 30 percent reduction at 62). Waiting beyond full retirement age adds 8 percent of your full retirement age benefit for each year you delay (a maximum 24 percent increase at 70).
To put that in dollars, imagine someone whose benefit at 67 would be $3,000 a month. Claiming at 62 would mean about $2,100 a month, while waiting until 70 would mean about $3,720. This is a hypothetical example that isolates the effect of claiming age and leaves out cost-of-living adjustments.
The difference between claiming at 62 and 70 is $1,620 a month. That’s substantial, but the person who claims at 62 also collects payments for eight additional years. In this simplified example, the total payments from waiting catch up around age 80, before accounting for taxes, investment returns, or other factors.
That calculation is useful, but it doesn’t settle the decision. You also need to consider your health, your savings, whether you’re still working, and how you would cover expenses while you wait. A larger check later has value, but so does having income available when you need it.
For married couples, the decision has another layer. A spousal benefit can be as much as 50 percent of the worker’s full retirement age benefit, although claiming early can reduce it. That doesn’t mean you collect your own full benefit plus another 50 percent. Social Security coordinates the two.
The survivor benefit is particularly important. When one spouse dies, the household generally goes from two Social Security checks to one. The surviving spouse generally receives the larger benefit rather than both, although claiming a survivor benefit early can reduce the amount.
That makes the higher earner’s claiming decision especially consequential. Waiting can increase the income available to the spouse who lives longer, potentially for many years. It’s easy to focus on what each person would receive today. It’s also worth asking what the household would look like financially after one spouse dies.
None of this means waiting until 70 is automatically the right answer. If you need income to meet your expenses, claiming sooner may be reasonable. The same may be true if waiting would mean taking on expensive debt or drawing down savings at a pace you’re uncomfortable with. Health and life expectancy matter, too. For couples, it may make sense for one person to claim earlier while the other waits.
At the workshop, we walked through hypothetical examples to see how these decisions interact with the rest of a retirement plan. These were entirely fictional households created for discussion, not actual clients or predictions of anyone’s results.
One example involved a single retiree deciding whether to begin benefits or use savings to cover expenses while waiting. We looked at how cash, CDs, a Roth IRA, and a 401(k) could support that decision, along with whether Roth conversions might make sense along the way. We also changed the spending assumptions. A claiming strategy that looks reasonable at one spending level may be much harder to support at another.
Another example involved a married couple considering having one spouse claim sooner while the other waited until 70. We then considered what would happen if one spouse died relatively early and the other lived into their 90s. That brought the survivor benefit into focus and changed how we evaluated the choices.
The point of these exercises was to show how much the answer depends on the rest of the plan. Claiming age, spending, taxes, savings, and longevity all affect one another. Looking at Social Security on its own can leave out some of the most important parts of the decision.
In my last column, I wrote about retirement as an income question. Social Security is a big part of that conversation. Your claiming age affects how much you need to withdraw from savings, which can affect your taxes and how long your money lasts. For couples, it can also shape the income available to a surviving spouse.
If you’re getting closer to this decision, start by reviewing your Social Security statement and comparing your estimated benefits at different claiming ages. Think through how you would pay your expenses if you waited. If you’re married, look at both benefits together, including what happens when one spouse dies.
There’s no single right claiming age for everyone. What matters is understanding what you’re choosing and how it fits into your life. That was the goal of the evening at Stillpoint: to help people feel a little more informed and a little more comfortable making a decision that matters.
For more retirement planning resources, visit vineyardwealthgroup.com.
Grant Joiner, CFP®, EA, is the founder of Vineyard Wealth Group. He grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, graduated from MVRHS in 2003, and lives in West Tisbury.
Disclosure: Grant Joiner is joining the board of ACE MV.
This article is for educational purposes only and is not individualized investment, tax, or Social Security claiming advice. Examples are hypothetical and do not represent actual clients. Social Security rules and benefits are subject to change. See vineyardwealthgroup.com/
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