If you were born in the year 1960, then your full retirement age will be 67 years. This does not affect the receiving of your retirement benefits, as you can start receiving your retirement benefits at the age of 62. However, it should be noted that the benefits you receive at the standard retirement age of 62 are significantly lower than what you will receive when you wait until you attain the full retirement age before you start receiving your benefits.
Standard retirement age vs. full retirement age
The standard retirement age and the full retirement age represent two important milestones in your life as a US worker for reasons that are closely related but serve different purposes.
Standard retirement age
- The standard retirement age represents the age set by the US government as the age when its workers can retire from active service, and as such, the retirement age is put at the age of 62.
- What this means is that when you retire at the age of 62, you can now immediately start to receive the payment from your Social Security retirement benefit.
- It should be noted that at this stage, some part of your monthly benefit is usually chalked off, and you will only receive around 70% of the total benefits that you are meant to receive. If you have a qualified spouse, they will receive just half of that amount too.
- To paint the picture, if you are to receive a retirement benefit that is worth $1,000 per month, you will get just $700 for the month and your spouse will receive half that sum, which is $350.
Full retirement age
- Your full retirement age is perhaps the sweet spot of being the recipient of retirement benefits for you, as this is the age when you get to receive 100% of the monthly retirement benefits that you are entitled to.
- What this will mean is that as soon as you hit the full retirement age, your monthly retirement benefits, which have increased to 100% of the monthly benefits due to incentives, can now be received.
- More than this, the possibility of further increasing the benefits you receive also improves, as you can accrue additional incentives by choosing to extend the receiving of the monthly benefits by months or years until you reach the age of 70. This doesn’t affect you alone, as your qualified spouse, who can get half of the payment you receive, will also see her retirement benefit increase.
Requirements for receiving retirement benefits
The retirement benefits you receive as a retiree of the US government do not come to everyone, as there are requirements laid out by the SSA for you to receive them either at the standard retirement age or the full retirement age.
- You must be a citizen of the United States.
- You must be 62 years old or older.
- You also must have worked and paid for social security for at least 10 years.
