Claim Social Security at 62—or Spend Your IRA First?

October 29, 2026
Written by Troy Sharpe CFP®, CPWA®, CTS®, Founder and CEO
Reviewed/Updated: October 2026 
Should you claim Social Security at 62 and preserve more of your IRA, or delay Social Security until 70 and use your retirement savings to help fund the years in between?
In this video, Troy Sharpe, CFP®, founder and CEO of Oak Harvest Financial Group, walks through a retirement planning scenario involving a married couple, Paul and Anna, who are both age 62 and have approximately $1.5 million in a traditional IRA, along with a smaller non-qualified investment account. Their goal is to spend approximately $8,000 per month in retirement. The comparison changes one major variable: when Paul begins collecting Social Security.
The analysis shows why this decision involves much more than simply calculating a Social Security break-even age. Claiming Social Security earlier may reduce IRA withdrawals during the first several years of retirement, while delaying Social Security may provide a larger benefit later and reduce the amount that needs to come from the IRA each year.
Troy also examines what could happen if the market declines during the years before Social Security begins, how taxes and Roth conversions may interact with the decision, and why the accounts used to fund the Social Security “bridge” can matter. For married couples, the decision may have another important consequence: the Social Security benefit available to a surviving spouse.
The larger lesson is that Social Security claiming decisions, IRA withdrawals, taxes, investment risk, retirement spending, and survivor income aren’t isolated decisions. They’re connected parts of a retirement income plan.

Who Is This Social Security Analysis For?

This discussion may be especially useful for people approaching retirement who are deciding whether to claim Social Security at 62 or delay benefits, particularly married couples where one spouse is the higher earner. It may also be helpful for retirees who expect to use IRA or investment assets to fund spending while delaying Social Security.
The analysis is particularly relevant if you’re thinking about how Social Security fits alongside IRA withdrawals, market risk, Roth conversions, Medicare premiums, taxes, and survivor income rather than evaluating your claiming age as a stand-alone decision.

Key Takeaways

  • Claiming Social Security at 62 may reduce early IRA withdrawals. In the scenario Troy analyzes, claiming at 62 allows more money to remain in the IRA during the first eight years of retirement.
  • Waiting until 70 changes the IRA’s job. Once the larger Social Security benefit begins, Paul and Anna need almost $20,000 less per year from their IRA under the assumptions used in the illustration.
  • The crossover doesn’t happen immediately. In this particular scenario, the waiting strategy catches the early-claiming strategy at approximately age 84 and then begins to pull ahead in the portfolio analysis.
  • A market decline matters under either strategy. Troy tests both approaches using the same 20% portfolio decline two years into retirement. Sequence risk remains an important consideration even when Social Security helps reduce withdrawals.
  • Behavior matters as much as spreadsheet math. A retirement strategy only works as modeled if you’re comfortable spending from your portfolio during the bridge years, including during periods when markets decline.
  • The account you spend from can affect taxes. Using a combination of traditional IRA assets, cash, and non-qualified investments may provide more control over taxable income than relying exclusively on traditional IRA withdrawals.
  • Roth conversions aren’t an isolated decision. Additional taxable income may interact with Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidies before Medicare and potentially future Medicare premiums as retirement progresses.
  • For married couples, Social Security isn’t only a longevity decision for one spouse. A higher earner’s claiming decision may influence the Social Security survivor benefit available to the surviving spouse.
  • The real question is bigger than “62 or 70?” Social Security claiming age should be considered alongside retirement spending, portfolio withdrawals, taxes, market risk, longevity, and the needs of a surviving spouse.

YouTube player

Full Transcript

You retire at 62. Claim Social Security now and your IRA gets immediate relief. Wait until 70, and your IRA has to support more of your retirement first in exchange for a larger Social Security benefit later. Which path creates more security for you?
Paul and Anna are both 62. They have about 1.5 million in traditional IRA plus a smaller regular investment account, and they want to spend about $8,000 a month in retirement. The only variable we’re changing in this video is when Paul starts Social Security.
So we’re gonna start with Paul claiming at age 62. By age 70, they have about $230,000 more in the IRA than if he waits. That looks like the stronger path. Now switch to Paul waiting until 70.

Why Claiming at 62 Leaves More in the IRA

His larger Social Security benefit starts then, and from that point forward, they need almost $20,000 less every year from the IRA. So the early path reaches age 70 with more money. The waiting path reaches age 70 with With an easier job remaining for the IRA. From there, the waiting path starts closing the gap.

Why Waiting Until 70 Eventually Catches Up

By around age 84, it catches the early path. Then it starts to pull ahead. Under these assumptions, waiting eventually wins the portfolio math. But if waiting eventually wins, why wouldn’t everyone wait?
Let’s keep the two paths separate. First, if Paul claims at 62, Social Security starts helping with the bills right away. Every check is money Paul and Anna don’t have to pull from the IRA. So more money stays invested and the IRA is larger when Paul turns 70.
Now, switch to Paul deferring Social Security until 70. For eight years, there’s no Social Security check coming from Paul’s earnings record. Their lifestyle doesn’t stop, so the IRA has to do more of the work. That’s why waiting, that’s why the waiting path reaches age 70 with less money in the retirement account.
But once Paul’s larger benefit starts at 70, the job changes. From that point forward, The waiting path needs almost $20,000 less from the IRA each year. That’s why the gap starts closing. The early path has the bigger IRA, the bigger balance at age 70.
The waiting path has given the IRA a much easier job every year thereafter. A bigger account isn’t the same as having an easier job remaining in retirement. Sometimes a decision you made earlier can cause a bigger account to have more responsibility in a tougher path ahead.
Hey, before we move forward and finish this video, if you want more retirement decisions run so you can see what each choice changes five, 10 or 20 years later, subscribe to the channel because we do a lot of videos just like this. And if you have any preference or want to see something, put in the comments below and I’ll do my best to get that video recorded. Now let’s test one of the strongest arguments for claiming earlier.

What If the Market Drops 20%?

What happens if the portfolio drops while Paul and Anna are still on those bridge years? We’re going to give both paths the same 20% portfolio decline two years into retirement. And we’re going to start with the elect social security early path. Now, because Paul is already receiving Social Security, they don’t have to pull as much from the IRA when the market is down.
So, yes, claiming early helps the cash flow. But when we run the waiting path through the exact same portfolio decline, Paul isn’t receiving Social Security yet, so the IRA still has to fund more of their spending while the market is down. That sounds like it should make the waiting path dramatically worse.
But when we compare each path with its own smooth market projection, both IRAs end up roughly $270,000 below where they otherwise would have been by age 70. So the lesson isn’t claim early and you’ve protected the retirement. You haven’t. You’ve simply reduced some of the withdrawals during the downturn.
Sequence risk is still there either way. And for the couple who waits, that creates a different problem. Spreadsheet may still say that the bridge works, but will they actually enjoy life through that period?

Will You Actually Spend From Your IRA?

So what do I mean by that? Imagine Paul and Anna are a few years into retirement. They’re deliberately spending more from the retirement account because Paul is waiting on Social Security to kick on. But then the market falls, and now the family wants to take a big trip.
Do they go? A social security check feels like income. you’re supposed to spend. But pulling that same money out of your retirement account can feel completely different.
It can feel like you’re taking a piece out of the future, a piece out of this big pile of money that’s supposed to be there for you. But when the market’s down and you have to withdraw, sometimes that can be painful. And oftentimes we don’t do the things that we would usually otherwise do. So even when the plan says the trip is affordable, they may hesitate.
They may put off the trip. They may skip the project. They may spend less than the retirement plan assumed they would.

Don’t Win the Math and Lose the Life

And if that happens, waiting has another cost. They may eventually win the financial math while giving up experiences during some of the healthiest years of retirement. That doesn’t make waiting wrong. It means the waiting strategy only works the way we modeled it if they can afford the bridge and they’re actually willing to live through it.
Don’t win the math and lose the life. There’s another planning decision inside that bridge. Suppose Paul and Anna also have some cash and money inside a non-qualified investment account.

Which Accounts Should Fund the Bridge?

Now they don’t have to fund every dollar of the bridge from the traditional IRA. If every dollar comes from the IRA, every withdrawal creates ordinary taxable income. But if part of the spending comes from the cash of the non-qualified account, they have more control over how much IRA income they create and potentially how much room they leave for a Roth conversion.
So we call this multi-account distribution. It’s a fancy way to simply say you can take money from different accounts to manage what goes on your tax return and to manage how much tax you pay. So, but that room has guardrails because before Medicare, higher income can reduce or eliminate marketplace subsidies. So Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act.
And as Medicare approaches, as you become closer to 65, higher income can affect your future Medicare premiums because Irma. income-related monthly adjustment amount generally looks back two years. So the point isn’t to delay Social Security and convert as much as you as much as you possibly can to Roth.
The point is control, to put control on your side of the table so you can make good decisions. And different tax buckets give Paul and Anna more choices about how to fund the bridge and how much taxable income to create. Now let’s come back to that age 84 crossover that I said at the beginning of the video.

The Age-84 Crossover Isn’t Just About You

If Paul were single You could look at that number and ask whether Paul lives long enough for waiting to actually pay off. But Paul isn’t single. He’s the higher earner in a married couple. Suppose Paul dies before age 84 and Anna lives longer.
The larger benefit Paul built by waiting can still matter because his claiming decision changes the survivor benefit Anna will receive. So age 84 isn’t only about whether Paul lives that long. For a married higher earner, the larger benefit Can keep helping the household after the earner dies. And that’s the consequence most break-even comparisons often miss.

How Your Social Security Decision Affects Your Spouse

So if Paul dies first, Anna doesn’t keep receiving both Social Security checks. The smaller payment stops, but Paul’s claiming decision changes the larger survivor benefit Anna may be able to receive. So in our illustration, if Paul claims it’s 62, Anna’s survivor benefit, the amount she’ll receive, is about $29,700 in today’s dollars. But if Paul waits until 70, She’ll receive $44,600.
That’s roughly $15,000 more per year, Social Security income every single year after Paul is gone. And the household expenses don’t typically fall by $15,000 just because Paul dies. Property taxes, insurance, maintenance, utilities, and plenty of everyday expenses still continue. So at 62, Paul thought he was deciding whether to spend Social Security or his IRA first.
But as the higher earner, He was also making a decision about what Anna might live on after he’s gone. That’s the part of simple breakeven calculation misses. So this is where the answer has to become personal.

Why This Decision Has to Be Personal

You can see how that one decision was made under the guise of it being IRA or Social Security first, but it actually was connected to an entirely different life happenstance, which is how much money would Anna have if Paul passed away. A lot of things in retirement are connected. So I have an upcoming book called The Connected Retirement, and it goes through these different connections.
So Paul thought he was making one decision, but it was actually connected to how much money Anna would have when he was gone. And this is where the answer for you has to become personal. Your benefits may be different, so may your portfolio, your health, the accounts available to fund the bridge, your taxes, and what the surviving spouse would need.
But if you want to see your own crossover age, how you could fund the bridge, what the trade-offs are for taking IRA. or non-qualified money or doing Roth conversions, partially or in larger amounts, and what each claiming choice could mean for your spouse’s survivor income option or survivor income, you can call us, reach out to us through the internet, whatever you’d like to do, but it’s a complimentary visit to just get to know each other and have a conversation about your choices that you have to make in retirement. So visit the OCarvis website or you can click the description below and reach out to us there.

Three Questions to Answer Before You Claim

So whether you work through this by yourself or if you do decide you’d want help, if if I were you, I’d want answers to three questions before making these decisions. First, can the portfolio fund the bridge? Not just in a smooth projection. One of the mistakes we see is we if we average 7%, what happens?
Well, can it handle withdrawals if the market falls during those years? What happens if you average 7%, but it’s plus 15, minus 15, 7.7, something like that. And will you actually spend the money while you wait?
That’s another thing because when you go through this and you actually have to make the life decision to pull money out when the market’s down, you have to play, you have to prepare for that. You have to think about it. And will you enjoy the life?
So, secondly, which accounts should fund the bridge? If everything comes from the IRA, you get one tax result. If you also have cash, non-qualified investments or any Roth money, you may have more control over what shows up on the tax return. So understand the tax impact of the decisions that you’re making.
Third and finally, if you’re married, whose social security benefit are you delaying? For the higher earner, this decision can affect the household for as long as either spouse is alive. So if that first question is the one you’re worried about, whether your portfolio can survive the bridge, watch this next video.
I’ll show you why a market decline early in retirement Can do far more damage once withdrawals have begun.
➡️ Want to see how these decisions could play out with your numbers? Schedule a complimentary retirement planning visit with Oak Harvest.https://click2retire.com/4jNctGT

Frequently Asked Questions About Claiming Social Security at 62 vs. 70

Is it better to claim Social Security at 62 or wait until 70?

There isn’t one answer that applies to everyone. Claiming earlier may reduce the amount you need to withdraw from retirement accounts during your early retirement years. Waiting may provide a larger Social Security benefit later and reduce the amount your portfolio needs to provide after benefits begin. Your portfolio, spending needs, health, taxes, other available accounts, marital status, and survivor income needs may all affect the decision.

Should I spend my IRA before claiming Social Security?

Using IRA assets to fund retirement while delaying Social Security is sometimes described as creating a “bridge” to a later claiming age. Whether that approach makes sense depends on more than the size of the eventual Social Security benefit. You may also want to consider taxes, market risk, available cash and non-qualified assets, Roth conversion opportunities, and whether you’re comfortable withdrawing from investments during market declines.

What is a Social Security bridge strategy?

A Social Security bridge generally refers to using retirement savings or other assets to fund spending during the years between retirement and the date Social Security benefits begin. For example, someone who retires at 62 but delays Social Security until 70 needs another source of income for those eight years. That money might come from an IRA, cash, non-qualified investments, Roth assets, or some combination of accounts.

What happens to my IRA if I delay Social Security until 70?

If you’re retired and aren’t receiving Social Security yet, your portfolio may need to provide more of your spending during the waiting period. That can mean larger withdrawals from an IRA or other accounts. Once the larger Social Security benefit begins, however, the amount required from the portfolio may decrease.

Does claiming Social Security early protect my IRA during a market crash?

Claiming earlier may reduce the amount that needs to be withdrawn from an IRA because Social Security is helping fund expenses. However, that doesn’t eliminate sequence-of-returns risk. In the scenario analyzed in the video, both strategies were negatively affected when the same 20% portfolio decline was applied two years into retirement.

What is sequence-of-returns risk in retirement?

Sequence-of-returns risk refers to the potential impact of experiencing poor investment returns while simultaneously withdrawing money from a portfolio. Losses early in retirement can be particularly important because withdrawals may leave fewer assets available to participate in a later market recovery.

What is the break-even age for claiming Social Security at 62 versus 70?

There isn’t a universal break-even age that applies to every retirement plan. In the specific Paul and Anna scenario analyzed in this video, the waiting strategy catches the early-claiming strategy at approximately age 84 under the assumptions used. Changing the assumptions could change the result.

How does delaying Social Security affect a surviving spouse?

For married couples, the higher earner’s claiming decision may affect the survivor benefit available after that spouse dies. In Troy’s illustration, Anna’s survivor benefit is approximately $29,700 in today’s dollars if Paul claims at 62, compared with approximately $44,600 if Paul waits until 70. This is why a Social Security decision may need to be evaluated over the potential lifetime of both spouses rather than only the person making the initial claiming decision.

Can delaying Social Security create an opportunity for Roth conversions?

Potentially. If you’re delaying Social Security and have multiple types of accounts available, you may have greater flexibility over where retirement income comes from and how much taxable IRA income you generate. That flexibility could create room for Roth conversions, but additional taxable income may also affect other parts of the plan.

Can Roth conversions affect Medicare premiums?

Higher income may affect future Medicare premiums through the income-related monthly adjustment amount, commonly called IRMAA. Because the calculation generally uses income information from two years earlier, decisions made before or around Medicare eligibility may have consequences later.

What accounts can I use while delaying Social Security?

Depending on the assets available to you, retirement spending during the bridge period could potentially come from cash, traditional IRA assets, non-qualified investment accounts, Roth assets, or a combination of accounts. Troy refers to using different account types strategically as “multi-account distribution.”

What should I consider before claiming Social Security?

Before making a claiming decision, Troy suggests answering three important questions. Can your portfolio fund the bridge, including if markets decline during those years? Which accounts should fund that spending, and what could that mean for your taxes? If you’re married, whose Social Security benefit are you delaying, and how could that decision affect the surviving spouse?