Dear All:
First, this is a wonderful resource. It is a privilege to be here. Thank you all in advance.
I have two SS questions:
(1) Can a person stop working prior to age 62 and still defer claiming SS until age 70? The answer to that question has to be "yes," but I've struggled to confirm it through free resources. (I recognize that I could pay a consultant to answer it for me.) And if the answer is "yes," I'm trying to understand quantitatively if/how a reduction in benefits based on a pre-age 62 retirement date could be offset by a deferral in claiming.
(2) Is there a SS calculator that allows a person to investigate various scenarios set forth above? I'm aware of this:
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/quickcalc/early_late.html, but it doesn't appear to answer my questions. The default SS calculator also allows one to input a pre-age 62 retirement date, but seems thereafter to only give benefit values when one reaches age 62 (vice FRA or age 70). Both firecalc and cfiresim also appear to lack the functionally to allow these values to be calculated (vice inputted).
I suspect that I'm only the billionth person to ask these questions, so if the answers rest elsewhere here, please *face-punch* me and excuse my ignorance.
