As a person born in 1958, your full retirement age will be 66 years and 8 months. However, it should be noted that despite the full retirement age being this specific age, you can start receiving your retirement benefits at 62, which is the statutory retirement age for you as a retiree in the United States.
What is a full retirement age?
A full retirement age (FRA) is the specific age at which a retiree in the US can start receiving their full retirement benefits at a 100% rate. This differs from the standard retirement age of 62 because it allows you to delay receiving the retirement benefits years after you have retired, depending on the year you were born. Therefore, if you were born in 1958, your standard retirement age will be 62, but if you wait until the full retirement age, it will be 66 years and 8 months.
What are the benefits of delaying your retirement benefits?
As stated earlier, the rate of retirement benefits you can receive as a retiree in the US is dependent and influenced to a large extent by the time you choose to receive your benefits. This is because receiving retirement benefits at the standard rate of 62 years will see you get a major part of your retirement benefits, but you will lose almost 30% of your benefits.
However, if you wait until your full retirement age, you can get 100% of your retirement benefits. This allows you to receive the benefits in full while enjoying additional incentives.
The rates you can receive for the standard retirement age and the full retirement age
This is a breakdown of the payment you will receive assuming your monthly retirement check is $1200.
Standard retirement age of 62
- If you choose to receive the monthly payment of your retirement benefits at 62, you will only get 71.7% of the monthly payment.
- This means that if your retirement benefit is $1000, you will only receive $816.4 in monthly checks.
- The deduction will also reflect how much your spouse can receive as a qualified spouse, as the payment will also be reduced from $600 to $426.
Full retirement age of 66 years and 8 months
- If you decide to wait until you are at full retirement age, you will receive the full monthly benefit of $1200.
- This payment also affects your spouse, who will receive a full monthly benefit of $600.
