Quick Read
PwC’s 2026 survey found 83% of Americans now prioritize financial resilience over returns, with 71% saying market volatility changed how they think about retirement.
Filing for Social Security at 62 instead of 67 permanently reduces benefits by 30%, while waiting past full retirement age adds 8% per year through age 70.
Healthy near-retirees with liquid savings can use those assets as a bridge, spending them now to fund a larger, lifelong, inflation-adjusted Social Security check later.
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The Survey Everyone Should Read Twice
The mood among American savers has shifted, and the numbers are striking. PwC’s 2026 Market Volatility Survey, fielded from May 27 through June 3, found that 83% of consumers consider building financial resilience more important than increasing long-term returns. Another 76% are more focused on liquidity and emergency preparedness, while only 18% are willing to accept more risk for additional returns. Seventy-one percent said volatility had changed how they think about retirement.
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Picture a hypothetical near-retiree who just turned 64. She has savings, a paid-off house, and has been reading the same unsettling headlines as everyone else. Her instinct is to move more money into certificates of deposit or a money-market fund and wait out the storm. She is also considering filing for Social Security now, figuring that a government check in hand feels safer than a larger one later.
Here is the twist. One of her strongest sources of financial resilience may be the Social Security benefit she has not claimed yet. Waiting could buy more of exactly the safety she says she wants.
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What Delay Actually Buys
Social Security provides three features that line up neatly with the PwC findings. The benefit does not rise and fall with the stock market. It receives annual cost-of-living adjustments, including 2.8% in 2026. And the payments continue for life, protecting against the risk of outliving a portfolio.
Story Continues
The size of that income depends heavily on when it starts. Benefits can begin as early as 62, but someone with a full retirement age (FRA) of 67 accepts a permanent reduction of approximately 30% by filing at 62. Waiting beyond FRA adds delayed retirement credits of about 8% a year until 70. At 64, she has already moved beyond the maximum early-claim reduction, but waiting longer continues to increase the check. Each month before 67 reduces the early-filing penalty she would otherwise accept. Each month after 67 adds delayed retirement credits.
Think of waiting as purchasing additional units of lifelong, inflation-adjusted income. She pays for them by using other resources during the delay. Compare that with the places nervous savers are moving their money. The FDIC’s national average yield on a 12-month CD stood at 1.68% in July, although the best available offers paid considerably more. The 10-year Treasury yielded approximately 4.68% on July 30. Both can be useful pieces of a retirement plan. Neither automatically adjusts its payments for inflation or continues paying for however long its owner lives.
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Market volatility is forcing a high-stakes rethink of the ‘claim early’ instinct. Discover why the smartest move for your lifelong security might be the one that feels the most counterintuitive. © 24/7 Wall St.
How the Pieces Fit Together
For a healthy 64-year-old with cash or a taxable brokerage account, delaying Social Security creates a deliberate swap. She spends some liquid assets today in exchange for a larger monthly benefit for the rest of her life. The trade is not free. Her savings decline during the bridge years, and waiting becomes less attractive if she is in poor health or needs the income immediately. But shifting every available dollar into cash while claiming Social Security early can solve the wrong problem. It protects the account balance while permanently reducing the income designed to last as long as she does.
Marriage adds another layer. If she is the higher earner, waiting can also increase the survivor benefit available to her spouse after her death. That larger check may continue for years after the household loses one Social Security payment.
What to Sit With Before Filing
Two questions deserve careful thought:
Decide which risk worries you most. Market volatility is visible every day. Longevity risk arrives quietly, years after the claiming decision has become difficult to change. A larger Social Security benefit addresses the second risk particularly well.
Price the bridge. Calculate how much cash or portfolio money would be needed to postpone benefits until 67 or 70, then compare that cost with the larger monthly payment. Test the plan against poor markets, unexpected expenses, and realistic life expectancies.
An application can generally be withdrawn within 12 months if all benefits paid on the record are repaid. After that, the options narrow. Someone who has reached full retirement age can suspend benefits to earn delayed credits, but suspension does not erase the original early-claim reduction. When the world feels shaky, the temptation is to lock something in. Just make sure the smaller Social Security check is not the thing being locked in for life.
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