Imagine my surprise when I realized just a few months ago that I was now old enough to apply for social security. Younger, blue-collar-raised me thought I shou

Imagine my surprise when I realized just a few months ago that I was now old enough to apply for social security. Younger, blue-collar-raised me thought I should hold out on applying for social security until I was 70 so as to get the largest monthly payout. Older, hopefully-wiser me (who has since learned about investing) applied for social security immediately and will stash the disbursements into an index fund until I actually need them. (I'm oversimplifying because there are other factors to consider, but generally, historic returns on the stock market suggest you'll have more by age 70 by investing he disbursements when you're 62 than social security would have paid out if you had waited until 70.) (Wild to imagine a system that was put in place that requires the recipient to guess how long they think they're going to live and choose when to start payments. Some kind of personal prediction market of one…) The wife was on board my starting at age 62 simply because of talk of social security solvency issues like the headline.