Social Security retirement claims tend to follow a seasonal pattern each year, and they increase over time with the aging of the population, says Jack Smalligan, senior policy fellow at the Urban Institute.
But this spring, something different happened, he says: an unexpected surge in the number of people applying for retirement benefits.
Between January and May, the number of claims was nearly 18% higher than during the same period last year.
The surge is disconcerting, he says, "because for most individuals, it's financially smart for them to postpone claiming as long as they're financially able to." That's because the longer you wait to claim your monthly benefit, .
"The question I have is, are these largely people who were planning to retire like six months from now, who have accelerated by a short period of time?" Smalligan says. "Or are they people who are making a much more fundamental shift in their retirement plans, in terms of claiming years earlier than they had been planning?"
Social Security is financed through . During your working years, you and your employer pay into the system. When you retire, your benefits are based on how much you () paid in and your age. The earliest anyone can claim benefits is age 62, and full retirement is . Once you reach age 70, the monthly benefit stops increasing, even if you further delay taking it.
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So what accounts for the uptick in claims? There are several factors at play.
In a statement to NPR, the Social Security Administration wrote that it had identified "three key reasons" that people are filing claims now: a peak of retiring Baby Boomers; that increases Social Security benefits for some people with pensions; and a bump in people who had been collecting spousal benefits re-filing to claim a higher benefit based on their own records.
But there appears to be another big factor among those in their 60s: worries about their economic future under the Trump administration.
'We better get it while we can'
A slide from a now-deleted showed significant year-over-year increases in claims by 62-year-olds 鈥� the earliest age you can file.
Bill Armstrong is one of them. He lives in Berthoud, Colo., and says he "recently decided it was in my best interest to retire."
His career was in IT, testing software. In recent years he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, was laid off from his tech job, and then weathered the ups and downs of government contract work. By last fall, he was applying for jobs, with no luck.
The November election result spurred Armstrong to consider filing for early Social Security benefits, he says. He worried about the direction of the economy, and his inability to get a job as the federal government cuts staffing and jobs in the private sector get harder to find. And he worried that the government would raise Social Security's minimum retirement age.
"With the election and the impetus of , I thought my career might be over as I know it," he says. "I'm battling cancer, I'm married with a spouse, I'm single income. And I decided I better get in the system before they move that age higher."
The last time Congress shifted the retirement age was in 1983, when full retirement was raised from 65 to 67, a change that was .
And although Social Security payments are called "entitlements," Armstrong notes that they are earned.
"We all paid into those things. In my case, 42 years now," he says.
President Trump has said he won't touch Social Security. But that's not putting everyone's mind at ease. Armstrong says he knows plenty of other people making the same decision he did.
"We feel like that may be taken away from us, so we better get it while we can," Armstrong says.
The former head of the Social Security Administration acknowledged those worries in a late March meeting that but later removed.
In the video, Leland Dudek, who was then the agency's acting commissioner, says to another official, "So what you're telling me is that [the pension rule change] put a strain on us being able to process claims. We have normal seasonal highs that are in that mix as well. And that fear mongering has driven people to claim benefits earlier, because they're afraid they're not going to claim benefits at all."
"Yes, you're exactly right," the official replies.
'I'll just put it in the bank'
Karen Mccahey, 66, moved up her timeline once Trump took office.
"I was originally not going to claim until I was like 70. That was my goal. Because then when you claim it at 70, you get, of course, more money," she says. But Mccahey, who lives in suburban Chicago, no longer wants to wait that long.