How to avoid this critical Social Security mistake

One Social Security mistake is silently draining retirement accounts—here's what you need to know.

Transcript

00:00One of the big mistakes that people make with Social Security is to claim early.

00:04The earliest age at which you can claim Social Security is age 62.

00:08And that's when you'll get the reduced benefit.

00:12And that reduced benefit is for the rest of your life.

00:15And so I think oftentimes people say, well, I'm going to claim Social Security at age 62

00:19because it's my money or Social Security is going away.

00:23So I might as well claim it while I can.

00:25And those are actually the wrong reasons to claim Social Security.

00:28One of the things that we know in this country is that about 10%

00:32of widows in this country live in poverty.

00:35And one way to sort of avoid that from happening is to make sure that you're

00:39claiming Social Security at the latest age possible that makes sense for you and your spouse.

00:45So that if you should pass on, the benefit that your survivor receives is the highest possible.