What Is the Full Retirement Age If You Were Born in 1958?
Understand the full retirement age for 1958 births and its crucial role in optimizing your Social Security benefits.
Understanding your full retirement age (FRA) is an important part of planning for Social Security benefits. This age determines the amount of retirement benefits you can receive. The full retirement age is not uniform for everyone; instead, it depends on your birth year. This article clarifies what full retirement age means, particularly for individuals born in 1958, and explains its impact on Social Security benefits.
Full Retirement Age for 1958
For individuals born in 1958, the full retirement age is 66 years and 8 months. Reaching this age allows you to receive 100% of your Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), which is your basic Social Security benefit before any adjustments.
The full retirement age has gradually increased over time for different birth years. Here is an overview of full retirement ages based on birth year:
| Birth Year | Full Retirement Age |
| :——— | :—————— |
| 1943-1954 | 66 years |
| 1955 | 66 years and 2 months |
| 1956 | 66 years and 4 months |
| 1957 | 66 years and 6 months |
| 1958 | 66 years and 8 months |
| 1959 | 66 years and 10 months |
| 1960 and later | 67 years |
Understanding Full Retirement Age
Full retirement age (FRA) is the age at which a person is eligible to receive their full, unreduced Social Security retirement benefits. This unreduced amount is known as the Primary Insurance Amount (PIA). The PIA calculation is based on your average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) over your 35 highest-earning years. This amount forms the baseline for all benefit calculations, whether benefits are claimed early, at full retirement age, or delayed.
How Full Retirement Age is Determined
The Social Security Administration (SSA) determines the full retirement age based on an individual’s birth year. Historically, the full retirement age was 65 for many decades. Legislative changes, notably the Social Security Amendments of 1983, initiated a gradual increase in the FRA. This adjustment was implemented to help ensure the long-term solvency of the Social Security program, partly due to increasing life expectancies. The changes were phased in over many years, affecting individuals born in 1938 and later.
Claiming Social Security Benefits
The age at which you choose to claim Social Security benefits significantly impacts the monthly amount you receive. If you claim benefits before your full retirement age, your benefits will be permanently reduced. For instance, claiming at the earliest possible age of 62 can result in a reduction of up to 30% for those with an FRA of 67.
Conversely, delaying benefits after your full retirement age can result in increased monthly payments due to delayed retirement credits. These credits increase your benefit by a certain percentage for each month you delay, up to age 70. For those born in 1943 or later, this increase is 8% per year.
Understanding these trade-offs is important for personal financial planning, as the decision affects your lifetime benefit amount. The full retirement age also influences spousal and survivor benefits; for example, a spouse can receive up to 50% of the primary worker’s PIA at their own full retirement age, and survivor benefits can also be impacted by the deceased’s claiming age relative to their FRA.