TY - JOUR T1 - Early Social Security Claiming and Old-Age Poverty JF - Journal of Human Resources JO - J Hum Resour SP - 1079 LP - 1106 DO - 10.3368/jhr.57.4.0119-9973R1 VL - 57 IS - 4 AU - Gary V. Engelhardt AU - Jonathan Gruber AU - Anil Kumar Y1 - 2022/07/01 UR - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/57/4/1079.abstract N2 - We estimate the impact of the Social Security early entitlement age (EEA) on later-life income, poverty, and mortality by tracing birth cohorts of men who had access to different potential claiming ages from the Social Security Amendments of 1961, which introduced age 62 as the EEA. Based on 1968–2001 Current Population Survey data, the average claiming age fell by 1.4 years, and Social Security income fell for male-headed families by 2.4 percent at the mean and 6 percent at the 25th percentile. Total family income fell, and the poverty rate rose by about one percentage point. Finally, mortality rates fell modestly in retirement. ER -