Who Are the 43% of Americans Who Work After Claiming Social Security?

Research shows that 44% of U.S. workers say they will wait until full retirement age to claim Social Security and that only 10% intend to wait until age 70, thereby maximizing their benefits. But who continues to work after claiming, and why do they do it?

Working after claiming is actually “quite common,” as a new study from the Boston College Center for Retirement Research found that 43% of individuals who turned 75 in 2022 claimed early.

Marcia Mantell, president of Mantell Retirement Consulting Inc., told PLANSPONSOR during an October 2025 livestream that Social Security is “not meant as an income replacement.” The benefit is “an insurance policy against living a long time,” Mantell said.

New CRR research found that most of the 43% who said they claimed while still working likely claimed because they could not or chose not to continue working full-time. More than two-thirds (68%) claimed before age 67, 31% claimed between ages 67 and 69, and only 1% claimed at or after age 70.

The early claimers were less likely than late claimers to be college educated and more likely than late claimers to work part-time than full-time. Three years after claiming, early claimants’ median annual earnings had decreased by almost half—to $16,500 from $38,700.

“The majority of worker beneficiaries [were] low earners throughout their lifetimes and really need[ed] Social Security to pay their bills,” says Siyan Liu, a research economist at the CRR and co-author of the study. “Any future reforms [regarding] Social Security should take this group into account [especially].”

CRR researchers found that the reasons people claimed between the full retirement age and age 70 are harder to understand but have less significant implications than those of the earlier claimants. Those who claimed between ages 67 and 70 earned a median annual income of $49,400 three years after claiming, compared with the $63,800 they earned at age 56, when the vast majority were still in the workforce. The issue brief summarizing the study stated that part of the explanation might be that the reward people who turned 75 in 2022 received for claiming later—a delayed retirement credit—only reached 8% for each year they delayed claiming past their FRA, until age 70.

A Benefit to Employees

Mantell says that while an employee may benefit from claiming early—for example, enabling a lower-earning partner to claim a partner benefit—there is no clear benefit to the employer. Regardless of when an employee claims Social Security, the employer must still pay taxes on the employee’s FICA wages.

What’s more, an employer never has to know whether an employee is claiming Social Security while still working.

While an employer will eventually know if an employee has Medicare Part A—it is triggered automatically when a person claims Social Security—there are other ways to sign up for Part A besides claiming the social safety net, Mantell says. Once an individual turns 65, they may activate Part A at any time. By law, an employer cannot discontinue an employee’s company-sponsored health insurance just because the employee has Part A.

“There’s no advantage, interest or benefit to the employer based on what the employee is doing [with Part A],” Mantell explains.

CRR’s Liu says additional research would be necessary to determine definitively why workers are choosing to continue working after claiming. Mantell hopes at least part of the reason is not due to a misconception.

It is a “wasted effort” for people to claim Social Security early because they think it is “going bankrupt,” says Mantell. She told PLANSPONSOR in October 2025 that while Social Security payouts are projected to decrease starting in 2034, “Congress knows this” and can act by amending the law that governs the program. Mantell says some people have the perception that if they claim Social Security before full retirement age, they will be “grandfathered in” to receiving full benefits—which she says is not the case.

People may also claim early because they are laid off from a job and decide to claim—but then they get a new job before it is too late to undo the claim, Mantell says. Eligible Social Security recipients can undo their claim if it has been less than 12 months since they started receiving their benefits.

A Multi-Generational Workforce

Having older people in their employ—and therefore a multi-generational workforce—might benefit employers and employees alike.

According to the CCR’s “Can Employer Demand Support Older Workers Today … and Tomorrow?” published in 2024, employers reported that older workers are at least as productive as younger workers—but more expensive. Meanwhile, while jobs that older workers do today may be less prevalent in the future, other jobs that could be done by older workers should continue to be plentiful.

“We have five generations in the workforce,” says Mantell. “Never has that happened before.”

While Mantell thinks there are benefits to having a multi-generational team, such as combining older workers’ experience with younger workers’ new skills, employers need to be “more creative” in how they harness both groups’ strengths.

“It’s a two-way street,” Mantell says. She says it is typically an advantage for employers to keep older folks onboard, unless there is a “physical danger” in doing so. Even then, it might make sense for an older adult to take on a new, unique role that requires fewer hours than they previously worked and a greater ability to work from home.

Without flexibility, an older adult might be more inclined to more abruptly leave their job, rather than plan a phased-in retirement, Mantell says. Such a move can harm the employer, because “40 years of experience and knowledge [walks] out the door,” Mantell says. She suggests that employers should foster more trust and communication between themselves and their employees to achieve a successful succession.

“Some of our older folks need to work longer because they’re not financially ready, and lots of our younger folks want promotions,” Mantell says. “We can do both. We just have to do it.”