# How to compare Social Security claiming ages in a planning tool

What five tools compute when you change a claiming age — benefit input, COLA, survivor rules, taxes, lifespan — and which assumptions move the result.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/how-to/compare-social-security-claiming-ages · next to Retirement & Portfolio Planning Calculators*

**Answer:** Take the primary insurance amount from your my Social Security statement and enter it into two kinds of tool. Open Social Security, free, prices every claiming month by mortality-weighted present value. MaxiFi, Boldin, ProjectionLab and Pralana Gold run each age through a whole plan with taxes and withdrawals. They disagree because their assumptions do: future earnings behind the benefit, the COLA, the discount rate, lifespan, survivor rules and any benefit cut.

## The tools that do this

*In the order this page recommends trying them. Paid placement does not affect this order.*

1. [Open Social Security](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/open-social-security.md) — Free. Every claiming month for one person or a couple, weighted by a mortality table and discounted at a real rate. Benefits only, no taxes.
2. [MaxiFi Planner](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/maxifi-planner.md) — Imports the earnings record from the SSA's XML file, so new earnings change the benefit. Ages judged by lifetime spending. $149 a year.
3. [Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin.md) — A typed PIA or one estimated from current income, a 2.54% COLA by default, benefits taxed by IRS Publication 915 rules. Tax modelling is on $144 PlannerPlus.
4. [ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab.md) — PIA from your statement, optionally raised by the plan's own earnings; earnings test, spousal and survivor benefits inside every Monte Carlo trial.
5. [Pralana Gold](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-gold.md) — Benefit at full retirement age in; both spouses' start ages searched for the highest final savings after tax. Excel, $99 a year plus $30 to join.

## The short way

Start from the number every tool needs, which is your primary insurance amount (PIA): the monthly
benefit at full retirement age. It is on your Social Security Statement in a my Social Security
account, beside estimates at nine claiming ages from 62 to 70. The statement says what those
estimates assume — in the SSA's sample, that they "are based on your earnings to date and assume you
continue to earn $54,489 per year until you start your benefits." The same account downloads the
statement as an XML file. The SSA's developer guide lists what is in it: the estimate at each age
from 62 to 70 and the earnings record year by year, Social Security and Medicare earnings separately.

The rules that turn a PIA into a benefit at each age are the SSA's and they are fixed. For anyone born
in 1960 or later, full retirement age is 67, and a claim at 62 pays 70% of the PIA — a 30% reduction —
while a spouse's benefit claimed at 62 is reduced by 35%. Each month of delay past full retirement
age adds two-thirds of 1%, 8% a year for anyone born in 1943 or later, and the increase stops at 70.
Someone born on the first of a month is treated as born in the previous month. Every tool on this page
applies those factors. What differs is everything around them.

So run the same PIA through both kinds of tool. [Open Social Security](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/open-social-security)
shows which claiming month gives the most expected benefit in today's money, with no account and no
taxes. A planner — [MaxiFi Planner](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/maxifi-planner), [Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin),
[ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab) or [Pralana Gold](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-gold) — shows what each age
does to the rest of a modelled plan: the gap before benefits start, the tax on them, the withdrawals
that fill the gap. Change one assumption at a time and watch which one moves the result. A tool's
best age is best under its own assumptions and its own objective; this page compares those, not the
ages.

## What each one models

**The benefit going in.** Open Social Security and Pralana Gold take a benefit at full retirement age
and nothing else, so the figure stays fixed whatever the plan says you earn next. Boldin takes either
a typed PIA or an estimate from the income active in your plan, looked up in a table the SSA
publishes each year; with no work income it defaults to $2,000. ProjectionLab's Estimate Benefit,
released in version 4.6.0 on 21 April 2026, takes the PIA plus an optional switch to include the
plan's own future earnings, and a field for years of covered earnings before the plan starts; plans
built before that release show only a flat amount. MaxiFi is the one that reads the earnings record
itself, from the SSA's XML file, and recomputes the benefit when new earnings would replace a lower
year. Its help centre says a benefit estimate alone "is not accurate enough for us to maximize your
Social Security benefits".

**Spouses and survivors.** All five model a spousal benefit. Open Social Security searches every
combination of both spouses' retirement and spousal filing dates. ProjectionLab's help page states
the rule it applies: half the other spouse's PIA, less your own benefit, reduced at spousal rates if
claimed early and never increased by delayed credits. Boldin switches the survivor to 100% of the
deceased's benefit, if greater, at the first spouse's longevity age; a survivor claiming before full
retirement age has to be entered as a pension. Pralana's change log records "more sophistication" added
to survivor benefits in July 2024 and a spousal correction in June 2026, so the version matters.

**The COLA.** The SSA sets each year's adjustment from the CPI-W; the latest was 2.8%, from the
December 2025 benefit paid in January 2026. Open Social Security works in real dollars throughout,
which assumes the COLA exactly matches inflation. MaxiFi applies COLAs at your inflation estimate
and reports in today's dollars, to the same effect. Boldin's default COLA is 2.54%, the CPI-W average
over 1994–2024, editable on its own. ProjectionLab's flat-amount mode defaults to "Match Inflation";
Pralana lets the benefit run above or below general inflation by a delta you set.

**Taxes.** Up to 85% of benefits can be taxable, depending on half the benefit plus all other income,
tax-exempt interest included, in IRS Publication 915. Open Social Security ignores tax by design.
Boldin applies Publication 915 for federal tax and state rules for state tax; MaxiFi and Pralana
compute federal and state tax on the benefit as part of the plan. ProjectionLab's help page fixes
the stream's tax type as Ordinary and does not describe how much of it is taxed.

**Lifespan and the discount rate.** Open Social Security weights each year to age 115 by the
probability of being alive — the SSA period life table by default, or a 2017 Society of Actuaries
table for better or worse health — and discounts at a real rate that defaults to the 20-year TIPS
yield on the day you load the page. MaxiFi plans for everyone to live to a maximum age, 100 unless
changed, "for the simple reason that you might". Boldin, ProjectionLab and Pralana run to a longevity
age you type.

**What "better" means.** Open Social Security ranks ages by expected present value of benefits.
MaxiFi's optimiser looks for the highest lifetime discretionary spending. Pralana's looks for the
start ages that give "maximum lifetime savings", and its site contrasts that with tools that maximise
lifetime benefits. Boldin's Social Security Explorer shows lifetime benefits by claiming date and
longevity; beyond that, Boldin and ProjectionLab leave the comparison to you — change the age and read
the plan.

## Where this breaks

**The earnings record behind the PIA.** A PIA on a statement assumes you keep earning your latest
amount until you claim. Stop work at 58 and the record you will actually have is shorter: as
ProjectionLab's own summary puts it, the benefit is based on your highest 35 years and fewer years
means zeros in the average. Any tool that takes one typed figure carries the statement's assumption
forward unchanged, whatever retirement date the plan uses. MaxiFi goes further and argues that the
SSA's estimates assume zero future wage growth and zero inflation, and adjusts an age-70 estimate for
it; that is MaxiFi's reading, not the SSA's wording.

**The COLA against your inflation.** A plan that inflates spending by one index and benefits by
another, or one that holds a 2.54% COLA while you change the inflation assumption to 3.5%, has opened
a gap between them that compounds over thirty years. [Why retirement calculators
disagree](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/why-retirement-calculators-disagree) covers CPI-U against CPI-W. Check whether the
COLA field moves when the inflation field does.

**WEP and GPO.** The Social Security Fairness Act, signed on 5 January 2025, ended the Windfall
Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset; the SSA's page says neither applies to
benefits payable for January 2024 and later. MaxiFi says it no longer applies them; its sister
product, Maximize My Social Security, lets users run plans with and without them "for a time".
Open Social Security's live code dropped them while its README still lists them. Boldin never
modelled either and used to tell affected users to switch the benefit off; a plan saved that way
still has it switched off. ProjectionLab's and Pralana's public pages, read on 9 October 2026, do not
mention either provision. If you have a pension from work not covered by Social Security, look at a
saved plan's spousal and survivor lines before trusting a comparison built before 2025.

**Survivor rules.** In the SSA's words, a surviving spouse's payments "start at 71.5% of your spouse's
benefit and increase the longer you wait to apply", up to 100% at the survivor's own full retirement
age for survivor benefits. The higher earner's
claiming age therefore travels into the survivor's income, and a tool that models one person, or
that switches the survivor at a typed longevity age, values that differently from one that weights
every year by who is alive.

**The mortality assumption.** With a fixed age at death, a claiming comparison becomes a break-even
calculation, and the age you type is the biggest lever on the answer. With a life table it becomes
an expected value, and the table and the discount rate are. Open Social Security's default discount
rate moves with the TIPS market, so the same inputs on two different days can rank two neighbouring
months differently.

**The earnings test.** In 2026 the SSA withholds $1 for every $2 earned above $24,480 before full
retirement age, and $1 for every $3 above $65,160 in the year you reach it, counting earnings only up
to the month before. At full retirement age it recalculates the benefit to credit the months withheld,
so the money is deferred, not forfeited. Boldin applies the annual test but, by its own help page,
not the special first-year rule that pays a full benefit for any month you count as retired; the same
page, dated 29 May 2026, still tabulates the limits as $23,400 and $62,160. ProjectionLab and Open
Social Security apply the test to early claimers who keep working; MaxiFi documents a grace year and
a monthly test.

**A benefit cut is a setting.** Open Social Security offers an opt-in cut pre-filled at 23% from 2033;
Boldin an opt-in 22% from 2032, citing the Congressional Budget Office; MaxiFi a percentage and year in
an alternative profile, separate from COLAs; ProjectionLab an expected percentage of the benefit,
100% by default. Four tools with four defaults and all four off: compare like with like before
comparing answers.

## If you outgrow this

**When the question becomes the whole plan.** [MaxiFi, Pralana Gold and
Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/compare/maxifi-planner-vs-pralana-gold-vs-boldin) compares the three optimisers' objectives
side by side, and [ProjectionLab vs Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/compare/projectionlab-vs-boldin) the two browser
planners. The rest of the shelf, including the free historical-sequence calculators, is in
[retirement planning](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/retirement-planning).

**When the numbers disagree and you need to know why.** [Why retirement calculators
disagree](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/why-retirement-calculators-disagree) goes through return models, inflation series
and success definitions — the parts of a plan that move before Social Security is even added.

## FAQ

### Where do I find my primary insurance amount?

In your Social Security Statement, on a my Social Security account at ssa.gov. The statement gives estimates at nine ages from 62 to 70, and the one at your full retirement age is the figure most tools ask for. The same account can download the statement as an XML file holding those estimates and your year-by-year earnings, which MaxiFi imports directly.

### Why does Open Social Security give a different answer from my retirement planner?

They measure different things. Open Social Security sums the present value of benefits, weighted by the probability of being alive, and ignores taxes and the rest of your money. MaxiFi measures lifetime discretionary spending, Pralana final savings after tax, and Boldin and ProjectionLab show the claiming age's effect on a whole projected plan. A different objective can rank the same ages differently with no error in either.

### Do these tools reflect the end of WEP and GPO?

MaxiFi says plainly that it no longer applies them. Open Social Security's live site no longer contains them, although its README still lists them. Boldin never modelled them. ProjectionLab's and Pralana's public pages, read on 9 October 2026, do not mention either provision. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed on 5 January 2025, ended both for benefits payable for January 2024 and later.

### If I claim before full retirement age and keep working, is the withheld benefit lost?

Not by the rule. In 2026 the SSA withholds $1 for every $2 earned above $24,480, or $1 for every $3 above $65,160 in the year you reach full retirement age, and then recalculates the benefit at full retirement age to credit the months withheld. Whether a tool models the recalculation, and the first-year monthly rule, varies.

## Sources

1. [Starting Your Retirement Benefits Early](https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/agereduction.html) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
2. [Delayed Retirement Credits](https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/delayret.html) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
3. [Receiving Benefits While Working](https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/whileworking.html) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
4. [Social Security Fairness Act: Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) update](https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/social-security-fairness-act.html) — Social Security Administration, 2025-07-21
5. [Survivor benefits — how much you could get](https://www.ssa.gov/survivor/amount) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
6. [Latest Cost-of-Living Adjustment](https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/latestCOLA.html) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
7. [Get Your Social Security Statement](https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/statement.html) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
8. [Social Security Statement sample (online)](https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/assets/materials/statement-redesign-online.pdf) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
9. [SSA Statement XML Developer Guide](https://www.ssa.gov/developer/statement/) — Social Security Administration, read 2026-10-09
10. [Publication 915 (2025), Social Security and Equivalent Railroad Retirement Benefits](https://www.irs.gov/publications/p915) — Internal Revenue Service, read 2026-10-09
11. [Importing Social Security History from SSA.gov](https://support.maxifi.com/support/solutions/articles/35000151023-importing-social-security-history-from-ssa-gov) — Economic Security Planning (MaxiFi Learning Center), 2025-05-05
12. [Social Security Record Options](https://support.maxifi.com/support/solutions/articles/35000321341-social-security-record-options) — Economic Security Planning (MaxiFi Learning Center), read 2026-10-09
13. [When can I use a Social Security benefit amount or estimate and still get accurate results?](https://support.maxifi.com/support/solutions/articles/35000223977-when-can-i-use-a-social-security-benefit-amount-or-estimate-and-still-get-accurate-results-) — Economic Security Planning (MaxiFi Learning Center), read 2026-10-09
14. [Non-Covered Pensions and Retirement Accounts](https://support.maxifi.com/support/solutions/articles/35000197663-non-covered-pensions-and-retirement-accounts) — Economic Security Planning (MaxiFi Learning Center), read 2026-10-09
15. [Why does the maximum age of life default to 100?](https://support.maxifi.com/support/solutions/articles/35000157707-why-does-the-maximum-age-of-life-default-to-100-) — Economic Security Planning (MaxiFi Learning Center), read 2026-10-09
16. [Social Security: How do I enter my benefit?](https://help.boldin.com/en/articles/4315544-social-security-how-do-i-enter-my-benefit) — Boldin, 2025-09-17
17. [Understanding the assumptions behind your Boldin plan](https://help.boldin.com/en/articles/4789289-boldin-planner-assumptions) — Boldin, 2026-05-27
18. [Social Security Earnings Penalty](https://help.boldin.com/en/articles/11490515-social-security-earnings-penalty) — Boldin, 2026-05-29
19. [New Feature: add a Social Security reduction](https://help.boldin.com/en/articles/14693229-new-feature-model-a-social-security-reduction) — Boldin, read 2026-10-09
20. [Social Security Fairness Act](https://help.boldin.com/en/articles/10377059-social-security-fairness-act) — Boldin, 2025-01-11
21. [Social Security Survivor's Benefits for Widows and Widowers](https://help.boldin.com/en/articles/5783637-social-security-survivor-s-benefits-for-widows-and-widowers) — Boldin, 2025-05-31
22. [How do I add Social Security income to my plan?](https://projectionlab.com/help/adding-social-security-income) — ProjectionLab, 2026-07-28
23. [What's new in v4.6.0](https://projectionlab.com/blog/whats-new-v460) — ProjectionLab, 2026-04-21
24. [Gold Changes](https://pralanaretirementcalculator.com/gold-changes/) — Pralana Consulting, read 2026-10-09
25. [Analysis & Optimization](https://pralanaretirementcalculator.com/analysis-optimization/) — Pralana Consulting, read 2026-10-09
26. [Income & Expenses](https://pralanaretirementcalculator.com/income-expenses/) — Pralana Consulting, read 2026-10-09

*Last updated 2026-10-09. A reference page, corrected in place — not a dated post.*