When are Americans supposed to retire? The answer isn't clear

Aug. 29, 2026Updated Aug. 30, 2026, 2:04 p.m. ET

Americans might be understandably confused about when, exactly, they are expected to retire.

We can claim Social Security at 62, Medicare at 65. But the “full” retirement age for Social Security is 67, and our benefits don’t max out until 70.

The average American actually retires at 62, according to two respected annual surveys, from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studi es.

But Boston College researchers put the average retirement age a bit higher: 62.6 for women, 64.6 for men, based on census data.

If there is an official American retirement age, in other words, good luck trying to find it.

“There isn’t a retirement age,” said Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, speaking to USA TODAY earlier this year. “It’s not that there’s a retirement age sitting out there and we haven’t discovered it. It’s just that it’s an ill-defined concept.”

65 used to be America’s retirement age. No longer

Years ago, many Americans viewed 65 as the expected retirement age. Until the 1980s, 65 was termed the “normal” retirement age for receiving Social Security. It was also the age most Americans could take Medicare, and the traditional retirement age for many pensions.

And then, the retirement math got fuzzy. In 1983, with Social Security facing insolvency, Congress passed legislation that gradually raised the full retirement age to 67. Pensions faded, and a new system of 401(k) retirement savings rewarded Americans for working longer.

Over recent decades, the average retirement age has crept steadily up. Between 1994 and 2024, the typical retirement age rose by about three years for both men and women, according to research by Alicia Munnell, senior adviser at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

Today, most Americans would be hard-pressed to identify the age when society expects them to retire.

“From a public policy perspective, I don’t anticipate these retirement milestones being synced up anytime soon,” said Catherine Collinson, CEO of the Transamerica Center, in an interview earlier this year.  

Here are 4 milestone retirement ages in 2026

Instead of one retirement age, we’ll give you four. Here are four milestone ages that define American retirement in 2026.

62

Sixty-two may not register as the classic retirement year: Many Americans think of it as late middle age. But it seems to be America’s most common retirement age.

As we said above, two respected annual surveys consistently find that the average American worker retires at 62.

“It’s been 62 for over 10 years,” said Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at EBRI, which runs the annual Retirement Confidence Survey. He spoke to USA TODAY earlier this year.

Sixty-two is also the most popular year for claiming Social Security. That’s hardly a surprise, because it’s the age when the money becomes available to most of us.

65

The Social Security Administration no longer regards 65 as the “normal” retirement age. But it’s still the age when most Americans become eligible for Medicare. For millions of working Americans, the combination of Social Security and federal health insurance makes retirement possible.

“I think as long as Medicare stays at 65, that’s going to be a big anchor point,” Copeland said.

Sixty-two may be the most popular age for claiming Social Security, but it’s not the average age. In 2024, the average American claimed Social Security at 65, according to agency data.

67

Sixty-seven is considered the “normal” retirement age for Americans born in 1960 or later, under current Social Security rules.

If you claim it at 67, you get your “full” benefit. Claim it earlier, and you get less money. The minimum benefit at age 62 is 30% smaller. Your monthly benefit check goes up for every year you wait.

70

But here’s the thing: Your Social Security benefit doesn’t stop rising at 67. In effect, if you claim before 67, you get a penalty. If you claim after 67, you get a bonus. Benefits increase by 8% a year until 70, when the bonus maxes out.

Between penalties and bonuses, the difference between taking Social Security at 62 and 70 works out to a roughly 76% increase, according to Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economist.

Penalty or bonus: Call it what you want. You get the most money from Social Security if you wait until 70.

In a sense, “70 has become the new 65,” Munnell writes in a paper titled, “Social Security’s Real Retirement Age Is 70.”

The sliding of scale of benefits was designed so people who took Social Security at different ages would reap roughly the same benefits over their lifetimes.

In practice, however, retirement experts routinely advise Americans to claim Social Security at 70. Based on simple human longevity, the typical retiree will collect the most benefits in the long run by claiming the largest possible monthly check.

Will the retirement age keep rising?

The average retirement age declined steadily in America for decades until around 1990, when the average started moving up again.

Retirement ages ticked up because Americans were living longer, staying healthier, and working in less physically demanding jobs. The rise of 401(k) plans, coupled with Social Security policy changes, rewarded longer careers. Employers stopped offering health insurance to workers who retired before 65.

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