Advisors appear to lack sophistication in advising clients about taking Social Security benefits, leading to mistakes that fall hardest on aging widows. That is the conclusion of a new study just published as a working paper of the Pension Research Council, a retirement research center affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

The paper's authors, Mathew Greenwald, Andrew Biggs and Lisa Schneider, based their findings on a survey of 400 financial advisors, drawn from a variety of different backgrounds including wirehouse and independent advisors, among others.

Yet advisors do not present a barrier to the prevalent tendency of Americans to claim benefits before reaching the full retirement age of 66, thereby ensuring a smaller lifetime benefit into advanced years when many Americans no longer have the option of continued work. Age 62, the first year Americans may elect benefits, is also the most common age chosen to do so.