• Social Security retirement benefits provide elders with a monthly check.elderly lady image by pixelcarpenter from Fotolia.com
  
  In 1934, during the Great Depression, over half of elderly Americans were not able to support themselves, a condition caused in part by the Depression and in part by the breakup of the extended family and increased life expectancy. The Social Security Act was passed in 1935, one of the radical innovations of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. Social Security was intended as "social insurance," a program to protect elderly citizens from poverty by providing some income after retirement. Workers have several options regarding Social Security retirement benefits.
  
  

Age 62

• Social Security retirement benefits can begin any time after the worker reaches age 62 if he has worked and paid into the federal Social Security system for a minimum of 10 years, or 40 quarters by then. When a worker starts collecting benefits affects how much his monthly Social Security check will be.
  
  

Full Retirement Age

• The worker's monthly benefit will be larger if he starts collecting at his full retirement age rather than at age 62. A person's full retirement age depends on the year he was born. The younger the worker is, the older his full retirement age will be. If a worker was born in or before 1937, his full retirement age was 65. The full retirement age for workers born between 1943 and 1954 is 66. Workers born in 1960 or later do not reach full retirement age until 67.
  
  

Age 70

• A worker may also wait until she is age 70 to begin collecting benefits. The amount of her monthly benefits would not increase any further once that birthday has been passed, even if she waited until she was 80 before she started collecting.
  
  

Amount of Benefits

• A worker's monthly Social Security retirement benefits vary depending on when she starts receiving benefits. For example, a worker whose full retirement age is 66 and who would receive $1,000 a month if she started collecting benefits at her full retirement age would receive $750 a month if she started receiving benefits at age 62. If she started collecting Social Security at age 70, she would receive $1,320.
  
  

Consequences

• If you live to your maximum life expectancy for someone your age, you would receive the same total amount of benefits over your lifetime no matter what age you started collecting Social Security retirement benefits.