I just applied to start receiving my social security benefits. I am 66 years old as of Oct 2020. i said I would start my benefits effective January 2021. I'm asking if I can change this start date and go back to Oct 2020. I did not understand and this was all done via a phone call instead of an in-person meeting due to COVID-19 restrictions. I have not yet received any benefits or my acceptance letter.

Hi,

Yes, you can still change your month of election (MOE) to start benefits from January 2021 to October 2020. What you'd need to do to accomplish that depends on the status of your claim. If your claim is still pending, your application could be amended to change the MOE before it's processed. Ideally, the best way to initiate that would be to re-contact the claims representative who took your claim. If you applied by phone, Social Security should have sent you a receipt for your application that includes information on how to re-contact the person with whom you spoke.

If your claim has already been processed, then you'd need to submit a written request to change your MOE. You could use a form SSA-795 (https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-795.pdf) for that purpose, but it would probably be better to first call Social Security and work with them to accomplish the change. Before deciding when to start drawing your benefits, though, you may want to strongly consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully analyze the options available to you in order to make sure that you're choosing best strategy for maximizing your benefits.

Best, Jerry