Teresa Ghilarducci, Columnist

Forced to Retire? Don't Claim Social Security Just Yet

The Covid economy has pushed a lot of older workers into early retirement. But hold off on taking those government checks.

April 17, 2021 at 12:00 PM UTC

Corrected

April 17, 2021 at 2:08 PM UTC

By Teresa Ghilarducci

Teresa Ghilarducci is the Schwartz Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research. She's the co-author of "Rescuing Retirement" and a member of the board of directors of the Economic Policy Institute.

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Deciding to delay claiming Social Security until age 70 is one of the best financial decisions Americans can make. But only 4% of people born 1943-1947 claimed at age 70. It’s clear that sometimes people face pressure to claim Social Security benefits much earlier than they should. And those sometimes might be right now.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been hard on older people. Besides the obvious, terrible effect of the disease, the labor market has been harsh. Out of 38 million workers aged 55 and older, by February 2021, more than 2.7 million had lost their jobs or left the labor market since March 2020. That’s almost 3 million people at risk for early, involuntary retirement.