I will confess to being surprised............

Even though it’s more common to hear about folks working into their 70s, the median age for retirement in America is still 62, which — despite worker plans — hasn’t changed in more than 20 years.
-as excepted from this interesting blog post

I would have thought it would have been closer to 65.  Still, one has learned to doubt statistics.   Plus, one then realizes that it says "median" not average.  At our house, anyway, it is too late for us to retire at 62, so we will just keep chugging along.

Thinking I would double check the source of the median age of retirement, this scientific looking paper was found.  It says the average retirement age for men in 2013 was 64.  So,  I still have time to be average.   The scientific looking paper also offered this interesting quote at its conclusion:

"Monthly Social Security benefits claimed at age 70 are 76 percent higher than those claimed at 62. The fact that people are always amazed when presented with this information suggests that a major educational initiative may be warranted."

We did the math.  In rough numbers, between age 62.5 (takes them a while to get you started) and age 70, I could collect a tad more than $131,000.  If I waited until age 70 for the first check, it would take until age 80 for the advantage of collecting the early money (presuming it is spent, not re-invested) to disappear.  No major educational initiative is warranted.  It is just a choice.  My guess is that many of us citizens would rather have the money sooner (did I tell you we still have kids in college?) than getting a larger check later.  Reasonable people can disagree, and your mileage may vary, but that is the decision we made.