Most Americans may consider the standard retirement age to be 65, but the so-called “full retirement age” for Social Security is already older than that — and it’s about to hit an even higher age in 2025. 

Social Security’s full retirement age (FRA) refers to when workers can start claiming their full benefits, which is based on the number of years they’ve worked as well as their income during their working years. The longer someone works and the higher their income, the more they can receive from Social Security when they finally claim their benefits.

While the FRA used to be 65 years old, Congress overhauled the program in 1983 to raise the retirement age threshold in order to account for longer life expectancies. 

As part of that revamp, the FRA has been inching higher by two months at a time, based on a person’s birth year. For instance, people who were born in 1957 reached their FRA when they turned 66 years and 6 months old, or starting in 2023; but people born in 1958 must turn 66 years and 8 months old to qualify for their full benefits, or starting in September 2024. 

The full retirement age is set to increase again by two months, to 66 years and 10 months old, for people born in 1959. That means the higher FRA for that cohort will go into effect in 2025, with people born in 1959 starting to qualify for their full benefits in November 2025. (You can calculate when you could get your full benefits on this Social Security Administration page.)

To be sure, there is flexibility about when to claim Social Security benefits. People can claim as soon as they turn 62 years old, but the trade-off is a reduced benefit that’s locked in for the rest of their retirement. 

For instance, claiming at 62 will result in a benefit that’s about 30% less than your full benefit — a sacrifice that many older Americans opt for, given that many are forced into retirement earlier than they expected or because they believe it makes more sense to claim more years of guaranteed retirement income, even if it’s at a lower amount.

While the increase in the retirement age isn’t new, it might catch some older workers by surprise, because even claiming a month earlier than your FRA will reduce your benefits, although at a lower rate than at age 62. And the difference in waiting until FRA versus 62 years old can be financially significant, with the Social Security Administration noting that someone retiring at FRA in 2024 could get a maximum monthly benefit of $3,822, while someone claiming at 62 would receive a max of $2,710.

Each year, Social Security benefits are adjusted to account for inflation so beneficiaries’ purchasing power doesn’t erode over time. In 2025, the annual cost-of-living adjustment will be 2.5%, the smallest annual COLA hike since 2021 due to cooling inflation. 

For most Social Security beneficiaries, the new COLA goes into effect with their January payment.

Young boomers and Gen Xers

The increase in the FRA for people born in 1959 marks the penultimate age change, with the final jump occurring for workers born in or after 1960. Those Americans won’t be able to claim their FRA until they hit 67 years old, which means that someone born in January 1960 must hold off until January 2027 to get their full retirement benefits. 

That will mostly impact the youngest baby boomers and Gen Xers, with the latter generation spanning 1965 to 1980. 

These workers, however, are among the least prepared for retirement, according to recent research. The youngest boomers — those born between 1959 and 1965 — started to hit 65 this year, but many of them lack adequate savings to support themselves in old age, the ALI Retirement Income Institute found earlier this year.

About 1 in 3 of these younger boomers will rely on Social Security benefits for at least 90% of their retirement income when they are 70, the study found. But Social Security benefits are designed to replace about 40% of a person’s working income. 

Gen X, meanwhile, is also shaping up to hit retirement without enough saved for their golden years. The average retirement savings of Gen X households is about $150,000 — far below the roughly $1.5 million that Americans say they need to retire comfortably. Another study found that about 40% of Gen Xers don’t have a penny saved for retirement. 

Meanwhile, older Americans can also maximize their Social Security benefits by delaying claiming until they turn 70 years old. At that point, one’s benefits are boosted about 25% higher than their full benefits. But only about 4% of Americans wait until they’re 70 to claim the maximum Social Security benefit, according to a recent study from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.