Suze Orman says delay Social Security if this factor applies to you

What is the right time to claim Social Security? That is a genuinely complicated question, with health, finances, marital status, and life expectancy all pulling in different directions. Conflicting voices in the personal finance world make it harder still.

For readers who follow Suze Orman, however, there is a clear answer on when to file for benefits. Orman has identified one situation in which delaying Social Security is virtually always the right call. Here is when she says you should absolutely wait, if you can.

If this is your situation, Orman says to claim Social Security as late as you can

Orman's advice starts with a simple health check. "If you are in your late 50s and in good health, you should seriously consider the upside of delaying when you start, so you can earn a higher benefit," she has written. The reasoning is straightforward: the Social Security benefit formula rewards patience. Claiming before your full retirement age triggers early-filing penalties, while waiting past FRA earns delayed retirement credits worth 8% per year until age 70. Those are two separate levers, and both push in the same direction.

For anyone born in 1960 or later, FRA is 67. That means you can first claim at 62, but doing so means accepting roughly a 30% permanent reduction compared with your standard benefit. Orman urges her readers to wait until 70 instead, the age at which delayed retirement credits stop accruing and the largest possible monthly check locks in. The cumulative impact is significant: Orman states that "if you wait all the way until you turn 70, your benefit will be 76% higher than if you start at age 62." Every month of patience between 62 and 70 adds a little more to that figure.

The break-even analysis strengthens the case for anyone in reasonable health. People who delay to 70 typically catch up to early claimers in total lifetime dollars received somewhere around age 80 to 82. From that point forward, the higher monthly payment compounds the advantage every single year. That is exactly the period Orman worries about most, the late-retirement years when savings can run thin and guaranteed income matters most.

The longevity argument Orman finds most compelling

One common fear is claiming late and dying before breaking even. Orman takes that concern seriously but counters it with life expectancy data. A woman who is healthy at 65 has a 50% chance of still being alive at 88. A healthy non-smoking man at 65 can typically expect to live to about 85. Both figures put the average retiree well past the break-even point for a delayed claim, which means waiting to 70 is likely to produce more total income over a lifetime, not less.

The math shifts even further in favor of delay when survivor benefits enter the picture. For married couples, the higher earner's benefit at death passes to the surviving spouse as a lifetime, inflation-adjusted payment. Orman has stressed that maximizing the higher earner's check by waiting until 70 is, in effect, buying the longest-lived spouse the largest possible financial safety net. Studies have found that roughly 7 in 10 retirees who wait until 70 collect more lifetime income than early claimers do.

A second tailwind for delayed claimers is the annual cost-of-living adjustment. Social Security benefits rose 2.8% in 2026, pushing the average retired worker's monthly payment to about $2,064. Because COLA is applied as a percentage of the base benefit, a larger check at 70 generates a bigger dollar increase every year than a smaller check claimed at 62 would. Over a retirement that stretches into the late 80s or beyond, that compounding effect on a higher baseline adds up to a meaningful difference.

Is Orman right about waiting until 70?

Orman's core advice holds up. For a healthy retiree with even a modest financial cushion to bridge the years between 62 and 70, waiting almost always produces a better long-term outcome. The 8% annual credit for delay between FRA and 70 is guaranteed, government-backed, and inflation-adjusted, a combination that is difficult to replicate elsewhere.

Not everyone can follow the strategy, and Orman acknowledges that plainly. Some retirees need the income immediately and have no other option. Others face health conditions that make reaching the break-even age unlikely. In those cases, claiming early can make genuine sense. There is also a spousal coordination strategy worth knowing: if your own benefit will be substantially smaller than your spouse's, claiming your benefit early while the higher earner delays can bring income into the household now without sacrificing the larger check's growth. When the higher earner eventually claims, the lower-earning spouse can switch to a spousal benefit, and the reduction in their own record no longer matters.

One piece of new context that makes Orman's delay argument more relevant: the Social Security program's financial picture has grown more pressing. The Social Security Administration's 2026 Trustees Report, released June 9, 2026, projects that the OASI trust fund will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2032. At that point, ongoing payroll tax revenue would cover only about 78% of scheduled benefits, meaning a potential cut of roughly 22%. Filing early from a reduced baseline and then absorbing that haircut would leave some retirees with very little to live on. A delayed claimer facing the same scenario starts from a much larger number. Congress resolved a similar shortfall in 1983 without imposing full cuts on beneficiaries, so a legislative fix remains possible. But the uncertainty adds one more reason to build the largest possible guaranteed benefit now.

There is a dissenting view worth noting. Personal finance commentator Dave Ramsey has argued that retirees should claim at 62 and immediately invest every check, betting on market returns to outpace the delay premium. That strategy requires being fully retired, having enough savings to cover living expenses independently, and sustaining the discipline to invest rather than spend the checks. For most people, those conditions do not hold. For those who do meet them, the trade-off deserves careful analysis with a financial advisor rather than a one-size-fits-all answer.

For the majority of healthy retirees who can make delayed claiming work, the numbers clearly favor waiting. Talking through the specifics with a fiduciary financial advisor is still worthwhile, because the right claiming age depends on your health, your household's income picture, and your goals for the rest of retirement.

Editor's note: This article was updated to include the 2026 Social Security COLA of 2.8% and the resulting average monthly benefit of approximately $2,064, the Social Security Administration's 2026 Trustees Report projection that the OASI trust fund could be depleted in Q4 2032 with roughly 78% of benefits payable at that point, the life expectancy context for healthy men at 65 (approximately 85), and the break-even age of 80 to 82 for those who delay claiming until 70 versus claiming at 62.

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