caribou:
You get a reduced benefit at age 62 from that you would get at your normal retirement age, dependent on when you were born. Normal retirement age might be age 66. Each year, after 62, the benefit is higher if you start then, rather than 62, till you reach full benefit at what ever your normal retirement age is. You do get benefit increases for COLA adjustments, but they are generally pretty low as the government uses unrealistic inflation numbers to set this increase, which usually is offset by medicare premium costs when you hit that point. You really need to find out from social security as to what your benefit schedule is. My wife started taking social security at age 62, but she didn't make much money, and she IS ten years older than me. When i hit 62, and started taking it, she was able to go to half my benefit, and she got paid double what she was getting.
The rest of it is a long story, and I don't want to get into it on here, but i am still working, and make more than what social security allows me to make without reducing the benefit. I.E. they haven't paid the benefit since around april. This supposedly stops at age 66 for me, when i can make what i want to without reduction.
