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Kuya Wrote: Greetings! I find this a fascinating as well as pertinent discussion. I am a 60- year- old US citizen and serve as a missionary here in The Philippines. I was wondering--since hitting the six decade mark in March-- what the earliest possible age is to begin receiving even the bare minimum amount(whatever that is).The cost of living is much cheaper here,of course.The US Dollar goes far here.One USD is about 50 pesos.For that reason,it may not be such a bad idea to collect early.In the old days the minimum age was 65. I am a bit out of touch now,but in looking at the entries which precede mine it seems that the retirement age is now 70. Is that correct? Is sixty-too young to initiate the process? I think it was 62 before. I only found this website and registered today.It is a big help.This is very timely.Good forums and information. Thank you for any advice!
Glad to have you on the site!
This should help:
Full Retirement Age
It shows the full retirement age based on when you were born. Generally speaking you can start taking early Social Security at 62. And full retirement age is now between 65-67 depending on when you were born.
Given that you are 60 now, if you are exactly 60, that would put your birth year at 1959? In that case your full retirement age is 66 years and 10 months. If your birth year is 1958, full retirement would be 66 years and 8 months. And for anybody born in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67.
Breaks it down too on the site for how much your benefits would be reduced if you take it early vs full. For example, if you take it as early as possible, 62, your benefits would be reduced by 30% of whatever you would have received if you waited until 67. And for every year you wait, it's less a reduction.
Of course on the flip side, if you wait to 68-70, your payments would actually go up. So its all about circumstance.
Your payouts will be less if you take them 5 years early, but then again you'll get 5 years of payments now vs none.