Social Security: Early retirement, disability or both.

Each Social Security recipient has an early, middle (full) or late retirement eligibility date. Often people take early social security retirement benefits because of health problems that keep them from working. Early retirement pays less than full or late retirement and comes with income limitations that can lead to serious over payment issues. If forced to retire due to bad health consider filing a disability claim in conjunction with the early retirement claim. If approved, the disability claim usually pays more than the early retirement and may provide benefits from an earlier period of time.