Are you an actuary?
You really get into the details of calculating benefits.
"Am I an actuary?" No. I'm an information system guy for Human Resources. My boss is quite a visionary, I'm a behind the scenes technical guy. If it's computer system related she tells me what she want's as an outcome, we discuss details. Then she gets out of the way while I roll up my sleeves. Very good working situation to be honest and why I enjoy my job. But it means I need to peek behind the curtain and think beyond the bump-sticker and think through details of how something works.
I work with benefits systems, recruiting systems, the HR side of payroll, ya-da ya-da ya-da.
When I retired I used the data table that SS provides, 62 looked good.
The only "hit" I would have taken for retiring at 62 is paying for healthcare insurance from age 62 to age 65 and Medicare. Luckily my wife added me to her coverage.
Don't forget that your SS benefit is reduced by the Medicare premium, and then you need to buy supplemental for the "donut hole", plus prescription drug coverage if you want that.\
My parents were older when I was born and their own retirement was just a few years away. They would have tried to help, but I left home at 18 with nothing on but the clothes on my back and joined the Navy. My rating was in Aviation Electronics, which led to computers, then databases and now information systems. Forty-Five years later I'm looking at our own retirement. We have - well - some solid retirement assets (home equity, 401K's, some stocks, CD's, etc.). The retirement budget has 6 sources of revenue (military pension, current employer pension, and SS for each of us). Our revenue steams will cover retirement living without having to touch retirement assets, including not touching the 401Ks.
Right now (in addition to employer health insurance) we have TRICARE Select which transitions to TRICARE for Life once we reach 65. We'll have TRICARE and MediCare in retirement and Medicare premiums won't be a problem. Will probably pick up either an Advantage or MediGap policy to cover the holes in coordinated medical coverage. As military retirees we are enrolled in the BENFEDS program where we access Dental and Vision coverage, those premiums already come out of my military retirement.
Personally speaking, if I assume a 25% reduction (worst case) in SS payments in 2035 - in other words SS check are reduced to 75%. That 25% drop in SS results in a 9.3% reduction in Gross Income (pre-tax) because SS is only 2 of the 6 streams. Because of the reduction in income, some napkin calculations show the effective negative impact on disposable income is 7.36% because of the standard deduction for taxes.***
WW
*** Take Gross Income, subtract the standard deduction for married filing jointly with the Senior provision, calculate Federal & State income tax on that amount, then subtract the taxes from Gross to get disposable income to build the budget. Then repeat the process based on a SS income reduction of 25%. The difference is the true impact of the SS reduction on our personal retirement budget based on the 6 revenue streams. Even then, if SS is reduced by 25%, the direct impact on disposable income isn't dollar-for-dollar because there is less income on which to pay Income Taxes. Because these calculations are based on our personal situation, others results will be different.