Let's start with the short answer. The average 70-year-old retired worker who collects Social Security in 2025 gets a monthly payment of $2,148. That's a total of $25,776 in annual, inflation-protected retirement income. That compares with an overall average retired worker's benefit of $1,975 per month, according to the 2025 Social Security Statistical Supplement.
However, this doesn't tell the full story. Some of the approximately 3.2 million people in this group have been collecting their retirement benefit for eight years, while others waited until full retirement age or even longer to claim their benefit.
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Thankfully, the Social Security Statistical Supplement breaks down the data into a few subgroups:
- First, of the 3.177 million 70-year-olds collecting Social Security retirement benefits, 1.48 million started collecting their benefits before reaching their full retirement age. For these retirees, the average monthly Social Security benefit is $1,724 -- significantly less than the average.
- Second, about 676,000 beneficiaries in this group have delayed retirement credit, meaning that they waited longer than full retirement age to start collecting. Now, this could mean that they waited just a few months, or it could mean they didn't even claim benefits until 70. But the average person in this group gets $3,033 per month -- much more than the average.
- This leaves about 1.02 million people who don't have delayed retirement credit or a penalty for early retirement. A quick calculation shows that the average 70-year-old who waited until full retirement age and then applied for benefits gets about $2,267 per month. (Note that this is based on my calculation and may not be exact because of rounding.)
