- Knowing the ins and outs of Social Security retirement benefits rules can help you claim a bigger check.
- Yet some facts about the program continue to trip up pre-retirees.
- Here’s where respondents to a recent quiz tended to stumble. Take the quiz to see how well you would do.
The age at which you claim Social Security helps determine how big your monthly retirement benefit checks will be for life.
If you wait until your full retirement age — generally 66 or 67 — to claim, you will get 100% of what you earned based on your contributions to the program. And if you wait until 70, you will get a bigger check for waiting.
But there’s no benefit to holding off past 70, because your benefits will not get any bigger.
Yet just 54% of respondents to a recent MassMutual quiz were able to correctly answer a true/false question regarding whether their monthly checks will increase if they delay claiming retirement benefits past age 70.
Lorie Konish | CNBC