Retirees who have already started collecting Social Security can pause their checks once they reach full retirement age and earn a bigger benefit later. The pause is open to anyone who has reached full retirement age but is not yet 70. During it, the Social Security Administration (SSA) adds delayed retirement credits for each month the checks are suspended.

The agency spells out the option on its page on suspending retirement benefits. Payments start again automatically the month a person reaches age 70 unless the retiree asks for them sooner.

Who can pause, and how to ask

SSA says a beneficiary who has reached full retirement age, but is not yet 70, can ask the agency to suspend retirement payments. The request can be made orally or in writing, and the pause begins the month after the month of the request. A check still arrives for the month of the request, because benefits are paid the month after they are due.

The agency’s pause page says full retirement age falls between 66 and 67 and that the request is made by phone. The number is 1-800-772-1213, with TTY at 1-800-325-0778, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. A caller tells the representative the retiree wants to suspend retirement benefits.

For retirees who already count on the monthly deposit, the real question is whether the household can go without that income for a year or more. Anyone between full retirement age and 70 who is thinking about a pause, whether to cover a few months or several years, should weigh the lost checks against the bigger benefit later, and should look at who else gets paid on the same record before calling.

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What the pause earns

SSA says a person earns delayed retirement credits for each month the benefit is suspended. Under SSA’s delayed retirement credit table, people born in 1943 or later earn 8 percent a year, which works out to two-thirds of 1 percent for each month. The increase stops when the person reaches 70, which is also when payments restart automatically.

A short illustration shows the scale. Someone with a full retirement age of 67 who stays paused until 70 would earn three years of credits, or 24 percent. On a $2,400 monthly benefit, that would raise the check to $2,976. That example is only arithmetic, and a person’s actual benefit and birth year set the real numbers.

The credits do not run forever. The federal regulation on delayed retirement credits, 20 CFR 404.313, ties the credit-earning period to age 70, ending with the month a person attains that age. That matches SSA’s statement that payments restart automatically at 70.

The same regulation says a pause begins with the month after the month in which the person asks SSA to suspend. Someone who has applied but has not yet been found entitled can suspend benefits for any month not yet paid, according to the agency’s suspend page.

What else stops during a pause

A pause does not only affect the retiree. SSA says other people who get benefits on that worker’s record cannot be paid for the suspension period, with one exception: a divorced spouse can keep receiving payments. Any benefits the retiree gets on someone else’s record are suspended as well.

SSA’s frequently asked question on voluntary suspension says the same, and the pause page lists family members who get benefits based on the retiree’s record. A spouse or a dependent child can see a check stop, which is easy to miss when the decision is framed as one person’s choice.

For a married couple, that makes the order of claims a household decision, not an individual one. A retiree who pauses may be cutting off a spouse who depends on the same record.

Medicare is the other trap. SSA’s suspend page says Part B premiums, which Social Security normally deducts from the check, cannot be taken out of suspended benefits. Medicare, through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, bills the retiree directly instead, and unpaid premiums can cost the person Part B coverage. The pause page repeats that anyone on Medicare must keep paying premiums to keep coverage.

Can a pause be undone?

Yes. SSA says a retiree can ask to restart payments whenever desired, or let them restart automatically at 70. An earlier restart takes effect starting the month after the request, per the suspend page. The pause is temporary, and the delayed credits earned up to that point count toward the larger check.

What SSA does not tell anyone is whether a pause pays off. The agency publishes the rate and the rules, but whether the higher benefit beats the checks given up depends on how long the retiree lives, what the household would do for income in the meantime, and who else depends on the record.

Would a pause beat the checks a retiree gives up?

A pause gives up real checks now in exchange for 8 percent a year later, and it can stop a spouse’s or a child’s payment on the same record while it runs. A retiree who suspends without testing the numbers can end up with a larger benefit that never makes up for the months of income lost.

The Social Security Claiming & Family Benefits Kit includes a claiming calculator (Excel) for claiming age, break-even and survivor benefits, plus spousal and survivor sequencing worksheets. The calculator covers break-even, meaning how long the larger check takes to catch up, and one part of the 37-page kit covers what happens when benefits have already started.

Get the break-even calculator and sequencing worksheets for a Social Security pause →

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.