Question: While my wife has started her benefit already and I plan on deferring taking my benefit, I’ve looked at break-even points using various ages to start collecting. It would seem that when deferring a benefit start-time from age 66 to 70, the break-even point is at age 81?
Answer: The breakeven idea is inappropriate. Social Security is providing longevity insurance. You wouldn’t consider breakeven in buying homeowner’s or auto or health insurance. You’d look at the worst case scenario — your house burns down, you total your car, and you get a very expensive illness. Here, the worst case scenario is that you live to your maximum age of life without having enough savings.
My guess is that highly precise software will find that the best thing to do is for you to wait until 70 to collect your own retirement benefit and for your wife to suspend her retirement benefit and start it up again at 70 at a permanently higher value. But you need to check with Social Security maximization software.
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