Yes — and your benefit won't shrink. Oak Road Wealth Management explains why age 70 is the magic number, plus the real (non-math) reason so many retirees keep working.
Yes. If you're 70 years old, you can collect Social Security and work full time without any reduction in your benefit. This is a common questions we hear at Oak Road Wealth Management, a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm in Lee's Summit, Missouri, and the answer is simple: once you've reached your Full Retirement Age (FRA), the Social Security earnings test no longer applies to you, and by age 70, you've also maxed out your delayed retirement credits. There's no financial reason left to wait.
Full Retirement Age (FRA) is the age — 66 to 67, depending on your birth year — at which the Social Security Administration considers you eligible for your full, unreduced benefit. Before FRA, the earnings test can temporarily withhold benefits if you earn above an annual limit. After FRA, that rule disappears entirely.
At age 70, you are well past FRA, so this concern doesn't apply to you at all. You can earn $40,000, $100,000, or $500,000 from full-time work and your Social Security check stays exactly the same.
If you haven't filed for Social Security yet and you're turning 70, file now — there's no financial benefit to waiting any longer.
Social Security rewards people who delay filing past FRA with delayed retirement credits, which increase your monthly benefit by roughly 8% per year. But those credits stop accruing at age 70. Waiting past 70 doesn't grow your benefit further; it only means missing out on months of payments you could have already received. Once you hit 70, filing is a no-brainer.
Your Social Security benefit amount will not be reduced, but a portion of it may become taxable depending on your total income.
The earnings test and the benefit calculation are unaffected by working. What can change is your tax situation. If your combined income (adjusted gross income, nontaxable interest, and half your Social Security benefit) exceeds certain thresholds, up to 85% of your Social Security benefit may be subject to federal income tax. This is a tax planning issue, not a benefit reduction — and it's exactly the kind of detail a fee-only fiduciary advisor can help you plan around.
Here's the part of this decision that has nothing to do with spreadsheets: many of the retirees we work with at Oak Road Wealth Management aren't working at 70 because they need the money. They're working because they need the purpose.
For some, that looks like part-time consulting in their old field. For others, it's finally starting the small business they've thought about for decades. And for a surprising number of people, it's simply staying at their previous job full time — because that job, and the people in it, made them genuinely happy.
There is no wrong answer here. The right answer is whichever one fits the life you actually want to live.
Retirement planning is often treated like a math problem: maximize the benefit, minimize the taxes, optimize the portfolio. Those things matter. But the harder — and more important — questions are usually emotional. What gives you a sense of purpose once the 9-to-5 routine ends? What does a meaningful week look like when work is optional rather than required? How do you want to be spending your time, and with whom?
As a fee-only fiduciary firm, our job at Oak Road Wealth Management is to help you answer both sets of questions — the numbers and the purpose — because a financial plan that ignores the emotional side of retirement is an incomplete plan.
We're a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm based in Lee's Summit, Missouri. That means we're legally obligated to act in your best interest, and we don't earn commissions from products we recommend. If you're approaching 70 and weighing whether to file for Social Security, keep working, start a business, or some combination of the three, we can help you build a plan that accounts for the taxes, the income timing, and the life you want to lead.
No. The Social Security earnings test only applies before you reach Full Retirement Age. At 70, you are past FRA, so working full time — at any income level — will not reduce your benefit.
No. Delayed retirement credits stop accruing at age 70. Waiting past that age only means missing out on payments you're already entitled to, with no increase to compensate.
Possibly. While your benefit amount isn't reduced, up to 85% of it may be subject to federal income tax if your combined income exceeds IRS thresholds. This is a tax planning consideration, separate from the benefit itself.
The earnings test temporarily withholds part of your benefit if you claim Social Security before Full Retirement Age and earn above an annual limit. It stops applying entirely once you reach FRA, and has no relevance at all by age 70.
Written by Andrew Matz, Financial Planner at Oak Road Wealth Management.
