Congressman Brendan Boyle asked the Congressional Budget Office to provide information about the effects that increasing—from 67 to 69—the age at which workers become eligible for full retirement benefits from Social Security would have on workers’ benefits and on the program’s finances. Specifically, he asked how such an increase in the full retirement age (FRA) would affect people’s benefits differently depending on the decade in which they were born, their earnings, and their sex.

All people affected by such an increase in the FRA would receive a smaller amount of Social Security benefits over their lifetime. Workers who chose to delay claiming their retirement benefits by the same number of months as the increase in the FRA would receive the same monthly benefit for a shorter period. Those workers who claimed retirement benefits at the same age as they would have claimed them under current law would receive a smaller benefit for the same number of years. The reduction in Social Security benefits would improve the program’s finances. Those projections reflect the assumption that Social Security will continue to pay benefits as scheduled under current law, regardless of the status of the program’s trust funds.