Claiming before 65 is kind of a pain. If you make more than 17k in addition to social security income, they reduce the social security benefit.
That said, I plan on taking it at 64. Why 64? The break even age is 80. Even someone in relatively good health, (me), can’t be guaranteed a life span. If it makes things a touch easier to start earlier, do it. The government wishes everyone would wait to 70, because the payout for them would be less overall.
I figured out the same thing at age 66 vs 70. I broke even at 81.
If I wait till 70 my wife gets a bigger survivors benefit if I predecessor her ( which is likely since women live longer). But I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford waiting till 70.
If I'm not mistaken, they only do that until you reach full retirement age, and then you can make as much as you want and not be dinged by SS. But I could be wrong.
If you file for early retirement benefits, you can make all the money you want, so long as it stops the month before you file. So you can work all year and retire in December. Ot take a big severance package. The first year of early retirement is a grace year (no claw-back of benefits received), so long as you have no additional earned income after you file. I had to explain this to my CPA.
I have read that Social Security will have finding issues in less than 10 years. I think if I sign up before that I would get grandfathered in when the decide they have to reduce benefits to those that have not begun to collect.
Take it early, keep working if possible and invest the money. It will pay off in the long run.