{"id":270681,"date":"2026-02-06T12:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/270681\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T12:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T12:45:16","slug":"youre-finally-eligible-to-claim-social-security-but-that-doesnt-mean-its-the-right-time-to-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/270681\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019re finally eligible to claim Social Security \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s the right time to retire"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Published: Feb. 5, 2026 at 4:22\u202fp.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"e1bc1vag0 css-1dqcy4b-StyledNewsKitParagraph\" data-type=\"paragraph\" font-size=\"16\">Americans become eligible for Social Security retirement benefits when they\u2019re in their early 60s, and for some, that\u2019s all they\u2019re waiting for to leave the workforce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"e1bc1vag0 css-1dqcy4b-StyledNewsKitParagraph\" data-type=\"paragraph\" font-size=\"16\">Almost three in 10 people said becoming eligible for Social Security was a \u201cmajor reason\u201d for initially retiring, and another two in 10 said it was a \u201cminor reason,\u201d according to an AARP <a data-type=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aarp.org\/pri\/topics\/work-finances-retirement\/employers-workforce\/retirement-decisions-working-job-hunting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" class=\"ekxajjj0 css-1y1y9ag-OverridedLink\">survey<\/a> conducted in the summer and winter of 2025. Other major reasons behind deciding to retire included having enough money saved, becoming eligible for Medicare, becoming eligible for a pension or other retirement plan, or having an illness or disability. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published: Feb. 5, 2026 at 4:22\u202fp.m. ET Americans become eligible for Social Security retirement benefits when they\u2019re in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[916,47878,138,1259,5341,246,3717,18389,134,17053,329,47879,3678,126498,263,4188,101226,111,139,69,244,245,126499,18154,47881,640,127464,2532,29039,2446,2935,128028,2443,128030],"class_list":["post-270681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-banking","tag-banking-credit","tag-business","tag-community","tag-credit","tag-finance","tag-general-news","tag-government-policy","tag-health","tag-insurance","tag-investing","tag-investing-securities","tag-labor","tag-labor-personnel-issues","tag-lifestyle","tag-living","tag-living-lifestyle","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-personnel-issues","tag-political","tag-political-general-news","tag-regulation","tag-regulation-government-policy","tag-retirement-planning","tag-securities","tag-social-services","tag-society","tag-society-community","tag-welfare","tag-welfare-social-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}