I recently spent an evening with some new friends, and the topic of “what do you do for a living” naturally came up. When I mentioned that I write a Social Security question and answer column, they wanted to know what the most frequently asked question I get is. When I told them, they both said they were going to ask me the same thing! Here it is.

Q: Should I take my Social Security when I turn 62? Or should I wait until age 66? Am I better off financially to take early retirement, or wait until my full retirement age to collect my maximum Social Security benefit?

A: I explained to my new friends that I could give them a precise answer to that question if they would give me the answer to this one simple question: When exactly — month and year, please — are you going to die?

And because no one knows the answer to that question, no one knows for sure if he or she is making the right decision about when to take Social Security. I've known more than a few people who wanted to “maximize their Social Security investment,” so they waited until age 66 to collect full benefits and then died within a year or two. But on the other end of the spectrum, I recently met a very spry 95-year-old man who took early retirement from Social Security at 62. He told me that had he known he was going to live as long as he has, he would have worked a few more years to get a higher Social Security benefit.

A good financial planner would probably suggest you wait until your full retirement age to claim your Social Security benefits. Why? Because in the long run, you're generally ahead to do it that way. Actuaries will tell you that if you live to 66, you'll probably live another 20 years or so. In other words, you'll live long enough getting the higher monthly Social Security benefits to make up for the money you'd lose by not taking early retirement benefits.

The average person would have to live about 12 years beyond full retirement age — in other words, until about age 78 or so — to come out ahead by not taking early retirement. And again, the actuarial tables suggest a person already in his or her 60s will live beyond age 78, so you are financially and mathematically ahead to wait until your full retirement age to claim your Social Security benefits.

Having said that, I have often advised people to “take your money and run” — to grab your Social Security benefits as soon as you are eligible for them. And I'm practicing what I preach. I took an early retirement, and so did my wife. And we're having fun biking and hiking and playing Scrabble games on the back porch and bouncing our granddaughters on our knees.

Get back to me in 20 years or so and I'll let you know if we made the right decision. But at least right now, I think we were better off taking our Social Security at an age when we're relatively young enough to have fun spending it.

But no matter what you do, here's some advice: Don't worry about it! Make the decision that's right for you at the time you're pushing one of the Social Security eligibility ages, and get on with your life!

Over my 32-year career with the Social Security Administration, and in the 10 years I've been writing this column, I've heard from too many people who seem to be agonizing a little too much about trying to come out ahead in the Social Security sweepstakes!

And remember this: If you choose early retirement from Social Security, that decision is not carved in stone. You can always change your mind later on. Lots of people do it. So if you take your Social Security at 62, and then six months later decide you want to return to work, you can call the Social Security Administration and suspend your benefits. And when you want them started again, you will not be penalized with the same reduction you had when you first took your Social Security checks. Your new benefit rate will include a reduction only for those months you received benefits before you went back to work.

To find out more about Tom Margenau and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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