Hi Larry, just as I turned 62 I found myself without work and did not know my future prospects. In order to survive I filed for Social Security. I found good work again but collected a total of five months of benefits before I requested the benefits to stop. I did not know that I could pay that money back within one year, and I missed that window. That was over two years ago. My full retirement age is 2 years from now, and I will turn 70 in less than 6 years. My question is, what have I done to myself with the 5 months of benefits, and how can I maximize my benefits at full retirement age or age 70? Thank you.

Hi. Your Social Security retirement benefit rate will be permanently reduced for any months that you collect benefits prior to your full retirement age (FRA), but drawing 5 months of early benefits would only reduce your permanent benefit rate by roughly 2.8%. As long as your earnings between now and your full retirement age (FRA) are high enough to prevent you from collecting any additional months of early benefits, then that's probably the extent of the damage you've done by filing for your benefits early.

However, until you reach FRA you can't voluntarily elect not to be paid any benefits that could be payable to you based on Social Security's earnings test (https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/whileworking.html). Therefore, if your earnings aren't high enough to preclude the payment of additional months of benefits prior to your FRA, your permanent benefit rate will be further reduced in return for being paid benefits for those months.

You could still elect to voluntarily suspend your benefits starting with the month you reach FRA in order to accrue delayed retirement credits (DRC) until you reach age 70. Doing so would increase your benefit rate by 2/3rds of 1% for each month that you decline to collect benefits from FRA until age 70, so voluntarily suspending your benefits from FRA until age 70 would be the best thing that you could do if your goal is to end up with the highest permanent monthly benefit rate. However, you may want to consider using our software (https://maximizemysocialsecurity.com/purchase) to fully analyze your options so that you can be sure to determine the strategy that you feel would best meet your goals.

Best, Jerry