Social Security explorer

The Social Security explorer compares every claiming age from 62 to 70. For a couple, it compares every combination of both spouses' ages.

The cards

• Settings. A Discount rate above inflation: 0% simply adds up today's dollars, and a higher rate values early checks more, like money you could invest. For couples, you can also choose when a widow or widower starts survivor benefits.
• Lifetime benefits by claiming age. Total benefits received over a lifetime for each claiming age, so you can see where the totals cross.
• Every combination. For couples, a grid of both spouses' claiming ages. It accounts for spousal benefits and for the survivor keeping the larger benefit.
• How claiming age changes your checks. The monthly benefit at each age, from 62 to 70.
• Money left on the table. How much less your current choice pays over your lifetimes than the highest-paying combination, if each of you lives to the age in your plan. Live longer and delaying gains more. Die sooner and claiming early would have paid more.

Acting on a choice

• Apply to a new scenario creates a scenario with the chosen claiming ages, so you can compare it with your plan.
• Apply to my plan changes your plan's claiming ages.
• Check the effect on my whole plan runs the choice through your full projection, including taxes and simulated markets.

Lifetime totals show only part of the picture. The whole-plan check shows what a claiming choice does to your savings, taxes and chance of success.

Where the benefit comes from

Each person's benefit can come from one of three sources, set in the plan's Social Security section:

• An amount you enter at full retirement age, in today's dollars.
• Your Social Security statement, reworked with your plan's own future pay.
• An estimate from your pay, using Social Security's formula.

See how Social Security is calculated.

Not modeled

The explorer doesn't model the earnings test if you claim while working before full retirement age, benefits for children, or the family maximum. Confirm your figures with the Social Security Administration before you file.