Jackie Cummins Koski, co-host of the Catching Up to FI podcast, made the case on episode 210 that most near-retirees are solving the wrong equation. “80% of personal finance, including Social Security, is psychological stuff and maybe some intangibles that you can’t hold in your hand,” she said, arguing against the reflexive advice to delay benefits until age 70.
The stakes are concrete. Claim at 62 and your monthly check is permanently cut by roughly 30% versus your full retirement age amount. Wait until 70, and you collect about 124% of that amount thanks to delayed retirement credits worth 8% per year past full retirement age. On an illustrative $2,400 full-retirement benefit, that is the difference between roughly $1,680 a month at 62 and roughly $2,976 at 70 for life. Pick wrong, and you either leave six figures on the table or hand the Treasury eight years of checks you would have rather banked yourself.
The verdict: Jackie is right, for a narrow profile
The break-even age for delaying from 62 to 70 sits between 80 and 82 for most workers, depending on cost-of-living adjustments and the discount rate applied to future dollars. Live past 82 and waiting wins. Die before then and claim early wins, sometimes decisively.
The piece most advisors gloss over is what Jackie describes as turning “a stream of income into an asset”. Take the early check, spend none of it, and invest it. An illustrative $1,680 monthly benefit compounded for eight years at a 7% real return lands somewhere near $215,000 in a brokerage account by age 70. That balance is liquid, inheritable with a step-up in cost basis, and donatable. The delayed benefit offers none of those features. It expires with the recipient (minus a reduced survivor benefit) and cannot be willed to a grandchild.
The macro backdrop sharpens the math. CPI reached 330.3 in March, up about 1% in a single month, which means purchasing power continues to erode while you wait. A 10-year Treasury yielding 4.3% sets a respectable floor: even risk-free, eight years of compounding early benefits is real money.
Where the strategy fits and where it backfires
It fits a 62-year-old with at least $500,000 saved, no pension, a family history of cardiovascular disease or cancer, and no plans to keep working at wages that trigger the earnings test (benefits are withheld above roughly $23,000 in earned income before full retirement age). In addition, it also fits anyone with an older spouse and minor children, because filing unlocks dependent benefits the household otherwise leaves unclaimed.
It hurts a healthy 62-year-old with longevity in the family, a thin 401(k), and no other guaranteed income. For that profile, Social Security functions as longevity insurance, and trading 30% of a lifetime check for eight years of early payments is a poor swap. The household savings rate has slid from 6% in early 2024 to 4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, suggesting more Americans fit the second profile than the first.
What to do this week
Pull your statement from SSA.gov and run your numbers through opensocialsecurity.com, which models spousal age gaps, mortality assumptions, and personal discount rates. Then answer one question honestly: Do you need this money to live, or are you converting it into an asset? If the answer is the first, delay. If it is the second, and your health, demographics, and balance sheet support it, Jackie’s strategy holds up to the math as well as the psychology.
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