Invest1 publisher3 min readPublished
Schroders finds 45% of respondents planning to claim Social Security before full retirement age
Schroders' 2026 retirement survey asked pre-retirees when they expect to claim and where their income will come from. The answers describe intent, and the advisor commenting on them says fear is pulling some claims forward.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Forty-five percent of respondents expect to claim Social Security before reaching full retirement age, according to newly released results from Schroders' 2026 U.S. Retirement Survey.
- Only 16% of respondents anticipate replacing at least 75% of their final paychecks with Social Security and other retirement income, and most pre-retirees were not confident where that income comes from.
- Forty percent of respondents who plan to claim before age 70 said they were concerned the trust fund may run out of money or stop making payments.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraint Waiting from 62 to 70 means funding eight years of retirement from something else, so the delay is available only to households that hold those assets.
- decision A shortfall projected about six years after this survey means a recommendation to wait now has to take a position on a date sitting inside the client's own planning horizon.
- contradiction Johnston said waiting and letting the benefit grow can make sense for affluent clients in good health. That is the group whose stated intent to claim early is hardest to square with the planning case.
Delaying a claim buys a bigger monthly payment, and the buyer pays first, in cash given up in the early sixties. Against the earliest claiming age of 62, the break-even David W. Johnston of OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners describes is sixteen to twenty more years of living [1]. He also said the calendar is finer than the standard conversation allows. The three ages in it, 62, full retirement age and 70, are "not the only three dates that matter. It gets one-twelfth better every month," Johnston said. "You don't have to do it on your birthday or Christmas or January 1st." [7][8]
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they plan to use cash savings, 48% cited a 401(k), 403(b) or 457 plan and 33% expected investment income outside an employer-sponsored plan [2][3][4]. Those three answers sum to 136, so respondents were naming more than one source each [3]. Which of them a household actually holds decides whether waiting is available at all. "If you don't have other assets ... well, then, yes, go walk through the Social Security window and get the money," Johnston said [16].
Johnston answered the confidence figures in an email. "While this study definitely sounds some alarms, the 84% who aren't confident need actionable roadmaps, not just warnings," he wrote [9]. In the same email he said his clients "do NOT experience a 25% reduction in preretirement income needs; rather, they spend a bit MORE early on" [10]. Deb Boyden, head of U.S. defined contribution at Schroders, said in a statement that "participants need more support transitioning from a savings mindset to an income mindset" [11].
The latest Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports, released in June, project the trust fund runs short in the fourth quarter of 2032 [13]. Johnston said fear is moving some claims forward: "I don't know what percentage, but there's definitely a percentage of people who are taking it earlier than they, on paper, on the spreadsheet in the planning, should" [14].
In my view the intent figure overstates how early the money gets taken. Full retirement age sits between 62 and 70 [7], so a respondent who files at 66 is counted alongside one who files at 62, and the survey records expectations. Two other paths are open. The 2032 projection holds and the fear answer converts into filings, pulling the distribution toward 62; or the income planning Boyden describes reaches the affluent, healthy clients for whom Johnston said waiting and letting the benefit grow can make sense [17]. A distribution of actual claim ages clustered at 62 would tell me I was wrong. Johnston, for his part, said the comparison clients make with friends is the wrong input: "The herd mentality as it relates to Social Security claiming should be avoided at all costs because it's truly an individual planning decision" [15].
What to watch
- Schroders put out retirees' top concerns earlier in the year, so a later release breaking claiming intent down by age would show whether the 45% sits nearer 62 or nearer 66.
- The next Trustees Reports moving the fourth-quarter 2032 date in either direction changes how much weight the fear answer deserves.
- Any advisor guidance that formally prices trust fund depletion into a claiming recommendation, which Johnston said he does not do.