Americans do not have one federally defined age at which they are expected to stop working. Instead, retirement is shaped by several milestones tied to Social Security, Medicare, pensions and workplace savings plans.
Workers can begin claiming Social Security retirement benefits at 62. The full retirement age for Social Security is 67 for people covered by the later schedule, while monthly benefits reach their maximum at 70. Medicare eligibility generally begins at 65.
“There isn’t a retirement age. It’s not that there’s a retirement age sitting out there and we haven’t discovered it. It’s just that it’s an ill-defined concept.”
— Andrew Biggs, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
The age at which Americans actually leave work also varies depending on how it is measured. Two annual surveys, conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, put the average retirement age at 62.
A separate analysis using census data found a higher average for some groups. Researchers at Boston College estimated that women retire at an average age of 62.6 and men at an average age of 64.6.
How the benchmarks developed
Until the 1980s, age 65 was commonly called the normal retirement age for starting Social Security. It was also the age when many Americans could qualify for Medicare and the traditional retirement age associated with many pension plans.
Congress changed the Social Security schedule in 1983 as the program faced insolvency. Legislation gradually increased the full retirement age to 67. At the same time, traditional pensions became less common and 401(k) plans expanded, creating a retirement system that placed more responsibility on workers and rewarded longer employment through additional savings.
Research by Alicia Munnell, a senior adviser at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, found that the typical retirement age increased by about three years for both men and women between 1994 and 2024.
Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at EBRI, said the average retirement age in the organization’s annual Retirement Confidence Survey has remained at 62 for more than a decade. Catherine Collinson, CEO of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, said the major retirement milestones are unlikely to become synchronized from a public-policy perspective soon.
- 62: The earliest age to claim Social Security retirement benefits and the average retirement age identified by two annual surveys.
- 65: The age generally associated with Medicare eligibility and the former traditional retirement benchmark.
- 67: The full retirement age for Social Security under the current schedule.
- 70: The age at which Social Security retirement benefits reach their maximum.
