By Russell Gloor
National Social Security Advisor at the AMAC Foundation
Ask Rusty – When Will I Get Full Credit for Delaying my SS Retirement?
Dear Rusty: The time is nearing that I want to move from my current Social Security survivor benefit to my own SS retirement benefit at 70 years of age. I have been looking more deeply into the application of Delayed Retirement Credits (DRCs), and I have read that DRCs accumulated in the year that I turn 70 (September 2026) will not be effective when I actually turn 70. Rather, those DRCs won’t be paid until the following year. Can you verify that this is correct? I presume that if the DRC’s are not applied at age 70, that they will be applied sometime after the first of the year and any increase will be paid retroactively. Signed: Retiring Soon
Dear Retiring Soon: The Delayed Retirement Credits (DRCs) you speak of have accumulated at the rate of 8% per year (.667% per month) since you reached your SS full retirement age (FRA), which means that at age 70 your monthly SS benefit will be about 129% of the amount you were entitled to at your FRA of 66 years plus 4 months.
However, your understanding of how DRCs will work for you at age 70 is not correct. If you claim for your Social Security retirement benefits to begin in September 2026 (the month you turn 70) you will receive all DRCs, you have accumulated up to that point in time. In other words, you will get your full age 70 benefit amount immediately, including all DRCs earned until then, effective with your first SS retirement payment (which you will get in October 2026). What you have likely read about is that DRCs work a bit differently for those who claim SS after their full retirement age, but before their 70th birthday month.
For those who claim mid-year but before age 70, only DRCs earned through the end of the preceding year are initially applied, and DRCs earned during the current year are not paid until the following January. This results in a loss of some SS benefit between the time benefits start and the following January, because only the amount earned as of the end of the previous year are first paid, and the full number of DRCs earned during the current year are applied in January. But, as is the case for you, when benefits are claimed to start in the month you reach 70 years of age, all DRCs earned up to the month of your 70th birthday are immediately applied.
Congratulations on selecting a strategy which will maximize your monthly Social Security benefit.
This article is intended for information purposes only and does not represent legal or financial guidance. It presents the opinions and interpretations of the AMAC Foundation’s staff, trained and accredited by the National Social Security Association (NSSA). NSSA and the AMAC Foundation and its staff are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration (amacfoundation.org/programs/social-security-advisory) or email us at ssadvisor@amacfoundation.org.
