A financial adviser says fear, not math, is increasingly driving retirement decisions, with clients asking whether they should claim Social Security at 62 because they doubt the program will still exist when they reach 70. In a commentary published by Fortune on October 11, 2026, the adviser recounts meeting a couple he calls Jeff and Julie, both 62, who had purchased a Social Security claiming analysis. Asked why, Julie's answer had almost nothing to do with maximizing benefits.

"Ray, I read. And everything I've been reading about what's happening with Social Security makes me nervous. If we wait until we are 70 to file, will it even be there?" she said.

His advice was blunt: do not file at 62 because you're afraid Social Security will disappear. "A frightening headline is not a claiming strategy," he wrote. While he understands the anxiety, he does not agree that claiming now is the answer.

Anxiety among clients who can afford to wait

The adviser notes that most of his clients are affluent and can afford to wait. Yet nearly every client he has met with this year has expressed anxiety about whether Social Security will be there. Many are considering claiming early "not because the math says to, but because they are afraid to wait." They are trying to protect themselves, and his job, he writes, is to challenge whether the decision actually does that.

What the 2032 projection actually means

Start with 2032, he says — in retirement-planning terms, it is "practically next Tuesday." The Social Security Trustees project that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, which pays retirement and survivor benefits, will deplete its reserves in the fourth quarter of 2032 under current law. Continuing income would initially cover about 78% of scheduled benefits.

The mechanics help put that headline in context: Social Security is financed primarily by payroll taxes on today's workers, and the Trustees have published depletion projections in annual reports for decades — dates that shift as economic and demographic assumptions change. Only an act of Congress can alter the underlying math.

That is a financing shortfall, not an expiration date, the adviser emphasizes. Payroll taxes would keep coming in, and Social Security would not disappear. But a potential 22% shortfall is real money — and for Jeff and Julie, it would arrive before their first retirement checks at 70. Telling them not to worry, he writes, is not an answer.

Administrative stumbles deepen the distrust

The administrative news does not help. In a September audit examining fiscal 2023 cases, the Social Security Administration's Office of Inspector General found that 46% of the retirement, survivor and disability overpayment notices it reviewed failed to meet agency requirements. Some contained inaccurate amounts, while others omitted information about reconsideration and waiver rights.

"If SSA were playing baseball, a .540 batting average would get it into Cooperstown," the adviser observes. "But these are notices telling people they owe money back. So, being correct 54% of the time is truly abject failure."

'Trying to avoid a possible cut by signing up for a certain one'

Julie concluded, "So, we need to file now and get our money now." That is where the adviser pushes back: being right about the problem does not make you right about the solution. Filing early does not protect future checks from a funding shortfall.

His explanation to her: "Julie, you're worried about the possibility of a 22% cut. But under today's rules, start your retirement benefit at 62 instead of 67 and you have a 100% chance of a 30% cut to your monthly benefit."

The 30% figure is not his forecast — it is SSA's claiming formula. Under those rules, full retirement age is 67 for workers born in 1960 or later — the group Jeff and Julie belong to — and the reduction for starting at 62 is permanent, not a pause. "Congress doesn't even have to hold a vote," he wrote. "You can arrange this particular cut in your pajamas." In his framing, someone trying to avoid a possible cut is signing up for a certain one.

Weighing the trade-off

Claiming at 62 buys five more years of checks than waiting until 67; the price is a monthly benefit that starts 30% smaller. The adviser counts those earlier checks, along with the savings spent while waiting, and compares retirement income over a lifetime rather than two percentages. The choice, he argues, has to earn its place in the retirement plan.

There is also what the "get it while you can" argument misses: no protection from future cuts is attached to an early filing date. Under an across-the-board percentage cut, the early claimant takes another reduction from an already smaller check, while the person who waited takes the reduction from a larger one. "You collected sooner. You did not make yourself immune," he wrote.

Waiting, he adds, is not doing nothing. Under today's rules, someone Jeff and Julie's age receives 70% of their full-retirement-age benefit by starting at 62, compared with 124% at 70, the point at which delayed retirement credits stop accruing. That is more monthly income for the later years of retirement. "I want clients to understand what they are surrendering before they surrender it."

What about Congress?

Jeff asked, "What do you think Congress will do?" The adviser points out that Congress has addressed financing problems before: in 1983, it increased revenue and changed benefit rules, including taxing some benefits and gradually raising full retirement age. Those amendments passed with bipartisan support and were signed into law when the program was just months from being unable to pay full benefits. That history belongs in the conversation, he writes, but "predicting the next deal does not belong at the center of their retirement plan."

With the couple, he has compared claiming at 62, at full retirement age and at 70, calculated lifetime income using their longevity estimates, modeled survivor benefits, and shown them how Social Security interacts with their other retirement assets. That, he says, is what they hired him to do — not to "nod sympathetically at the same headlines they have already read."

Put fear into the calculation

His recommendation: test claiming strategies against smaller future benefits, count the earlier checks, the withdrawals from savings and the income left to the surviving spouse. When the numbers say wait, he tells clients to wait. "Fear does not get a veto over the result," he wrote. "Don't throw away the stronger strategy because collecting now feels better this morning."

Social Security has a financing problem, and among the clients sitting across from him, it has become a trust problem as well. He takes both seriously, but he is not asking them to trust Congress. "I am telling them not to mistake an early check for protection from Congress," he wrote.

Julie deserves an answer, not an echo of her anxiety, the adviser concludes. His is this: claim because it strengthens your retirement, not because the news frightened you. "Don't let fear file your application."

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune. This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.