Call it a one-year disconnect, but the reality remains: While 65 is the generally accepted benchmark for retirement in the United States, Social Security's full benefits still kick in a full year later, as they have since changes made in 1983.
And as a result, many retirees, whether they realize it or not, are short-changing themselves by drawing their Social Security benefits too soon, on their 65th birthday.
The nature of that arbitrary 65 figure – though it's widely being ignored as pre-retirees have conceded they'll probably have to work far beyond that age to gain any level of retirement security – has been examined by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research in a new study, "Sticky Ages: Why is Age 65 Still a Retirement Peak?"
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Researchers argue that continuing to set 65 as a mental threshold for retirement provides a disservice for workers in many ways, prompting many to draw their Social Security benefits too soon and thereby reducing the much more generous benefits available at 66.
Part of the issue, they suggest, goes back to the Social Security Amendments of 1983, which boosted the Full Retirement Age, changed the actuarial adjustments for retirees drawing benefits as early as age 62 and also set the delayed retirement credit.
Despite the relatively widespread knowledge that waiting until 66 vastly increases a retiree's Social Security benefits, the vast majority of Americans still begin making SS claims at 65.
The Center says that Medicare and the nature of its own two-tiered retirement age also adds to general confusion about the best age at which workers should officially draw their benefits, for maximum effect.
Researchers studied two different groups, one with an FRA of 65, and others who qualified for Medicare between age 65-and-two-months and 66, and found that members of the latter group, especially those without employer-provided retiree health benefits, were more likely to claim Social Security at the less-generous age 65.
On the whole, the study suggests that the allure of Medicare eligibilty may in fact create a disservice to many retirees, with a considerable percentage more likely to draw their benefits at 65, particuilarly if they're without other health coverage.
The researchers also say they found that the ability of individuals to predict their Social Security benefits tends to be unrelated to whether or not they claim benefits, retire or exit the labor market on their 65th birthday.
More importantly, with the very real possibility that Social Security's FRA may soon jump to 67, the gap becomes even greater and the expectation is that even more American retirees will, perhaps accidentally, begin drawing benefits too soon to maximize payments.
The result might be a larger number of workers who stay in the labor pool to better access the full extent of their benefits, researchers add.
This could also be helped through the implementation of health insurance exchanges through the Affordable Care Act, which might give pre-retirees more security to wait it out a bit and make 67 their new retirement goal.
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